Friendship Like Phosphorus
by Draconic Caduceus
Summary: Remake of 'Friends'. Sometimes friendship with an Autobot isn't all it's cracked up to be and sometimes that friendship means that sacrifices must be made. But friendship, like phosphorus, shines brightest in the dark.
1. Return

**Oh hey guys, I'm back! **

**So I've gotten a lot of questions about my stories and if I'll continue to write. Yes. I do still write a lot, mostly reworking characters I created a long time ago. I just haven't posted it anywhere. Recent reviews and private messages have prompted me to begin to redo the stories I have here and post them. Now I give to you...Friendship Like Phosphorus!**

**~DC**

* * *

The hot desert wind kicked up loose pebbles, dust, and the occasional bit of trash some asshole didn't dispose of properly, sending them skittering across the dust-colored road and pinging lightly against the sides of the silver solstice.

_Good thing I paid for that wash and wax,_ Katie joked. Even though she'd known the ex-Autobot for just over a year, she felt less than comfortable releasing the wheel while they drove. It was a habit, a natural instinct for her to hang on as if she were in control. In times like this it was comforting to feel the warm leather beneath her hands, the neat rows of stitches and the spots worn from her worrying.

"Well," the car replied as they rattled over a pothole. "_You_ were the one that insisted that I couldn't go and meet everyone else without looking my best." His tone was light and teasing, balm on her frayed nerves. "It's okay, babycakes. Just relax."

She gave a soft huff of laughter and tried to relax her tight grip on the steering wheel. Her nails had dug little half-moons into her palm and her knuckles hurt from clenching them. _I don't know why I'm the one nervous,_ she said with another nervous little laugh.

"I guess it's all perfectly normal," the car assured her. "You're going to a large, heavily-guarded military base." Katie gave a low little whimper but he continued as if she had made no noise at all. "You're going to meet more of my kind, all of which are larger than me in root and alternate mode. It's perfectly normal for you to be afraid."

_But you're the one returning from the dead,_ she protested, biting her lip. With a deep breath she forced herself to completely release the wheel.

Something in the car rattled, a sound she had come to associate with the equivalent of a human shrug for him in his car mode. "So?"

She shook her head and leaned back against the soft leather seats. It was always such a nice treat when he drove like this. If she could relax enough to enjoy it, of course. Now as the desert scenery whipped by it felt almost soothing even when she was so stressed. Only the barest of dark smudges on the mirage-ridden horizon marked the Autobot base ahead and the city they had left behind.

"Heads up," her friend said, shaking her from her thoughts. A plume of dust was rising from something just ahead of them. "We got company."

Immediately she tensed, hands darting to the wheel like a guilty teen. _Who?_

There was a long, tense pause before her friend laughed. "Don't worry," he told her. "I know this guy!" He whooped and shot forward, eating up the distance. "C'mon, little Bee! Let's race!" he called as they passed.

_You're lucky I love you_, Katie grumbled but she signed it with a slight smile, glad that he was enjoying himself.

"I can feel your butt clenching up," the solstice teased as he zig-zagged in front of the yellow Camaro behind them, keeping him from passing them. "You better not crap all over my seats."

_Puking is more likely_. She transferred her death grip to the armrests and pressed her head back against the headrest, focusing on taking deep breaths. Briefly she wondered if this was what giving birth was like before she pushed the thought out of her head.

Her friend laughed, much more carefree than she had heard him since she'd met him. "C'mon, Babycakes, lighten up. It's just a friendly little race." She tried to laugh but it came out closer to a moan. Dimly she could hear her friend sigh. "C'mon, Babycakes," he said gently over the sound of his racing engine. "Deep breaths, now, attagirl." She focused on the sound of his voice with its cute, almost Cajun accent.

_Ok,_ she signed, taking another deep breath. _Okay. I'm okay_.

"Good," her friend said. "You'll be perfectly fine to watch me beat. His. Ass." He whizzed past the startled guards at the gate, the yellow Camaro hot on his bumper. "Ha!" he crowed.

Katie caught on to what he was about to do only moments before he did it by way of noticing that he wasn't slowing down too much as he approached the _oh God that's a massive robot_. She didn't get a chance to dissuade him, sign out the expletives that made out her response to the stunt he was about to pull, or even really get a good look at the massive robot they were about to run into.

Even though she expected it, the sudden _jerk_ she felt when her friend (_not anymore, I swear to God!_) ejected her high into the air and transformed. She and her work bag were caught before she fell too far and before she could even scream. Her friend held her gently in his clawed hands, cradling her protectively to his chest.

Part of her wanted to be so very angry at him. Her hair was a mess, her makeup was probably smeared or runny and her eyes might be too bright with nervous tears. She was pretty sure that her hands were shaking and her mouth was opened slightly in an embarrassing face of shock and terror from that stunt. The only thing that made her feel better was the big yellow green robot in front of her looking just as shocked as she felt.

"What's crackin', bitches?" the asshole holding her said with a static-laced laugh. "Didja miss me?"

The robot in front of them looked baffled. "_Jazz?_"


	2. Misunderstanding

**Just a quick note, this new Katie is inspired by a different cousin than was the original inspiration for Katie. Her personality and attitude won't be much different than the "original", but her issues are different. **

**~DC**

* * *

In silent amusement, Katie sat and watched Jazz get reacquainted with his friends. For a moment a shiver of cold fear dripped down her spine when she realized that the yellow mech in front of her (_he was more of a chartreuse,_ she thought to herself. _Or that ugly yellow-green crayon you didn't like in grade school_) wasn't the largest there. Jazz put her down when Optimus Prime showed up so he could properly salute. She couldn't fault him, coming from a military background, but she did wish that he still held her.

A hand came down on her shoulder and she jumped embarrassingly. There had been two teenagers in the yellow Camaro, a very attractive dark-haired girl and a lanky awkward geek of a boy. The hand on her shoulder was from the girl. "It's nice to meet you," she said, ever so polite. "I'm Mikaela. This is my boyfriend, Sam."

Her lips twitched. Anxiety stole her voice and she just smiled at them shakily. "Don't worry," the boy, Sam, said. "They're really aware of everything around their feet. They won't step on you. Not on purpose. Not unless...you know…_oof!_"

Mikaela had elbowed Sam hard in the side. "They won't step on you," she assured Katie. "But it's really freaky being near them, yeah?"

"Wait to you see Ironhide," Sam said with what she thought was unnecessary cruelty. "When _we_ first met him, he shoved his cannons in our face."

The robots themselves were speaking excitedly amongst themselves. The one that had been the camaro was bouncing happily on his feet and the door-wings on his (or so she assumed was the proper pronoun) back bounced and fluttered. A big black robot emerged from between the not-quite-pristine hangars, a military man following purposefully in his shadow.

Mikaela elbowed Sam hard in the ribs again. "_That's_ Ironhide," she said quietly. "And that's Captain Will Lennox."

Fear closed her throat now, not just her voice. She believed that they meant well, really she did, especially after knowing Jazz for just over a year. But their sheer size made even the most confident, fearless human quail in terror. One wrong move - that she _knew_ they wouldn't make - and she was just an ugly little smear on the hot desert landscape.

"Breathe, babycakes," a familiar voice said quietly and turning she found that Jazz had knelt down beside her. His face, so expressive even without eye equivalents, shone with gentle sincerity and his own natural friendliness. A large hand that seemed more avian than human reached out and rested on her back reassuringly. "Cut off that auto-erotic asphyxiation, Cookie Monster."

Behind her she could hear Sam snort. "Cookie Monster? _Ow!_"

_Mikaela must've elbowed him again,_ she thought crazily. Jazz's hands cupped her in a cocoon of silvery metal and clawed fingertips.

"Babycakes?" Jazz asked quietly, face filling her vision. His face was concerned. "Katie?"

She took a deep breath, focusing on his face. _Ok,_ she signed, taking another very shaky breath. _Just give me a moment._

Her face and neck burned in embarrassment already, but that burn escalated to a scorching level when Ironhide muttered, "If she's scared _now_, a Decepticon attack would kill her."

Jazz snapped something back to him in a language of electronic whistles, clicks, and whorls. The black robot snarled, the cannons on his forearms lighting up. "There we go," Jazz told her gently. "Gimme a smile, sugah?"

Without fail it always made her smile. It did then too, though the smile was a very shaky one. _I think I can do this now._

"You sure?" Jazz asked. His face showed nothing but kindness and understanding.

_I need to be able to face your friends,_ she told him, her nervous shaking causing her to fumble a little with her signs. Jazz pretended not to notice. _I can be strong for you. I want us to have good memories before I say goodbye._

Jazz recoiled slightly. "_Goodbye_?" Then his face pinched. "Oh." That was not the response she expected and she recoiled slightly. "You think I intend to stay with them."

Biting her lip, Katie looked away from his face, feeling tears pricking the corners of her eyes. _Why not?_ She asked. _You're better off with them._

Jazz sat down and behind him she could see that everyone had gone. "They all went inside," a voice said and she squeaked and turned to find the _chartreuse_ robot on his hands and knees to peer at her. "While your sun does not affect us very much, you are much more fragile and prone to ailments such as heatstroke, sunburn, and heat exhaustion. I thought it prudent to move indoors."

"Why don't you go and join them, doc?" Jazz growled.

The other didn't take the hint. "My scans indicate that you are stressed and showing the signs of an anxiety attack. As I do not believe Jazz is capable of-"

In a move that reminded Katie of a child on the playground, Jazz planted his palm on the other's face and _shoved_ him away. "_Go away_," he snarled, using his other hand to cradle Katie's back. "Private conversation. We'll be in when it's done."

The other robot frowned deeply but their commanding officer appeared in the doorway of the hangar closest to where they crouched. "Ratchet," he called and the green looked over his bulky shoulder at the massive red and blue robot. "Give them some privacy." Ratchet, as he was apparently called, scowled but obeyed though he dragged his heels about it.

Alone, Jazz transferred his scowl to her. "Now what makes you think I'm staying here?" he demanded. He shifted slightly to throw her in a shadow, aware that she was sweating out in the sun.

_They're your friends aren't they?_ She snapped back, fear forgotten now that she couldn't see the others. It was her and Jazz, alone, as it had always been when they spoke like this. _You belong here._

"I'm not a wild animal," Jazz growled. "I don't belong anywhere I don't want to go. I don't need to be with my own kind to be happy." Katie winced and looked away guiltily. Gently he touched her chin and turned her face up to him. "I'm happy with _you_, Katie. I'm glad you got me to come back here to see everyone but I don't want to go back to this war."

Katie bit her lip. _Isn't that desertion?_ She asked, worried. What would they do to him for it?

"Prime'll understand," he assured her gently. "And if he doesn't I'll ask him if I could be your guardian." He leaned back slightly. "Now. Are you ready to see the rest of them?"

I could back out, she realized. He'd let me say 'no'. No judgment. Reaching out she hugged as much of his leg as she could reach. Gently he picked her up and carried her to the hangar.

"She okay now?" Sam asked as he put her down. "Are you okay?" he asked and she frowned at him. He was enunciating his words strangely.

Jazz was also frowning. "What's wrong with you?" he wanted to know, glancing at Mikaela who looked embarrassed. She was glancing between Sam and Katie as if she wasn't sure who to look at.

Shaking her skirts off, Katie ignored him as Will stepped forward. "I'm Will," he said politely, offering her a hand to shake.

This she could handle and took his hand. "Captain Will Lennox," she said, tongue feeling and sounding heavy. "That's what Mikaela said. My name is Katie."

"You're not in the military," Will said, amused. "Technically you don't have to call me by my rank. You can just call me Will."

A noise to her right had her turning to find the big red and blue robot, their commanding officer, taking a knee to be closer to her height. He offered her a massive finger to shake. "It is nice to meet you, Catherine," he rumbled. God, she could feel his voice in her bones. "I am Optimus Prime."

"Just Katie, please," she said, hoping her voice didn't sound as weak to him as it did to her.

A head that was as large as she was inclined politely. "I would like to thank you for taking care of Jazz. He is a very dear friend of mine and that you were kind enough to care for him in his time of need means much to me."

She took a moment to process that. "Really, sir," she said carefully. "It was my pleasure. He is a good friend."

"These are my men," Optimus Prime told her, gesturing to the robots behind her. "Bumblebee, guardian to Mikaela and Sam, who you have met." The yellow Camaro chirped and bounced on his big feet. "Ironhide, guardian to Major Lennox." This of course was the big black robot with cannons that spun on his forearms. A glare from Optimus Prime kept him from doing more with them, or so she guessed. "Ratchet, our Chief Medical Officer." This was the weird green robot and now that she thought of it, she noticed red notes on his armor that looked like they belonged on an ambulance.

"Not so bad, huh?" Jazz teased, easing himself down into a sitting position beside her. Putting names to faces, being in a hangar with them, and knowing that she wouldn't also be saying goodbye to Jazz when she left meant that she felt better around them. She was still terrified of their sheer size but they had carefully negated that by spreading out more around the hangar than simply around Jazz.

She mustered a shaky smile. "Want something to drink?" Will asked and looking past him she could see that there was a human-sized lounge, complete with a few couches, coffee tables, a few game stations, and a large TV. There was a Mountain Dew soda machine beside a small mini-fridge at the edge of it and a few men in sweaty uniforms lounging around. "I'm sure they want to catch up. It'll be boring to stick around until they do." he joked, eyes light.

Jazz gave her a slight nod and she followed the humans their designated corner. Briskly Will introduced her to the sweaty men in the chairs who looked like they had just run laps around base.

"What have you guys been doing, rolling around in the sand?" Mikaela demanded.

The man introduced as Epps lolled his head and grinned at her. "Nah, just doing exercises out back with the twins. _Damn_, those guys are fast."

"They're Lamborghinis," Sam said, throwing himself into one of the loveseats. He coughed as the action kicked up a large puff of dust. "Of _course_ they're fast."

Will was walking toward the soda machine and mini-fridge. "What can I get you? Beer? Water? Soda?"

Nervously Katie looked around. No one was staring her except for Sam who looked like he was trying to do so discreetly. "Just water, please," she said.

To her shock, Will knocked sharply on the machine. "Two waters, please, Dewey," he said. The machine rattled and the basket opened by itself, revealing the requested bottles. "Thanks!" Seeing her look, Will offered a bottle with a wry smile. "He was made during Mission City. Harmless really. Just not too talkative."

"That's so weird," she blurted before she could stop herself and slapped a hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

Epps laughed uproariously from his spot on the couch. "It is," he agreed. "But you get used to it eventually. Or do you still think Jazz is weird?"

He had a point there and she nodded agreeably to him. She sat at Will's gesture on a relatively clean and dust-free chair. "It took a while to get past it."

"You're adjusting very well," Sam said, over enunciating again. "It must be very hard for you."

Will frowned at him as he sat down. "It was hard to see how small Jazz is compared to everyone else," she admitted. "I didn't realize he was so...small."

"Something about their mass," one of the others, whose name she didn't get, told her. "When they scan their alternate modes. The mass gotta match up."

She tilted her head to the side. "I guess that makes sense."

"So how did you meet Jazz?" Mikaela asked curiously. "Hey Dewey, can I get a diet of whatever you have?" The machine rattled agreeably and a diet Pepsi popped out. "Thanks, buddy!"

Taking a deep breath, Katie told them the whole complicated tale. How someone had reportedly broken into a Pontiac dealership and stole the Solstice that was modeled in the window. How, after a long and arduous chase it barely got away but was found weeks later and taken to the impound lot. How it was sent to a used-car lot owned by a friend of hers who in turn called her up and sold it to her at a good price. He had known that she was in need of a car and since the Solstice was still relatively new, cut the price further as a gift and encouragement for her.

What she didn't know was that Jazz had "stolen" the car and led the police on that chase and before he could get away, had fallen into stasis lock. He had woken up again after she had owned him for a week and had promptly panicked. He threw her out of his cab and demanded to know why she was driving him.

"I got lucky," she said, sipping her water. "I was in my driveway near my house. I have no neighbors really," she explained. "I live in wine country. Lots of empty space. So when Jazz dumped me I hadn't been driving very fast and no one was there to see."

She went on to explain how she had talked him down from his panic and they had settled together. It really was kind of an idyllic life on the old winery.

"It sounds like a fairytale," Mikaela sighed, sipping on her soda. "So no one suspected?"

Katie shook her head. "No neighbors so he could walk around and he was really careful when we did go out. He stays in the warehouse where he can stay out of sight even if someone does visit."

To her right, Sam said something. He stole a sip from Mikaela's soda and made a face and said something else. Once more he was over enunciating but this time it was to an extent where she couldn't understand him at all.

"Dude, _why_ are you doing that?" Epps demanded. "It's getting annoying."

Katie leaned slightly toward Will, who was sitting closest to her. "What did he say?"

"Who, Epps? Or Sam?" Will asked, politely turning toward her.

"Sam," she replied even as she felt her face and neck burn with embarrassment. The way Will scowled over her shoulder told her that Sam (or so she assumed) said something that caused a bit of an uproar behind her. She ignored it.

"He asked what you do for a living and whether Jazz got bored waiting for you," Will said slowly and with care but without over enunciating the way Sam had. "Then he wondered if they get bored waiting for us while we live our lives."

When she turned to the rest of the group, she found that some of the soldiers were staring at her and Mikaela's face was red. She wouldn't meet Katie's eyes and she felt a wash of shame and embarrassment.

"Yes," she said, tongue feeling heavy. She wasn't normally an emotional person, but now she felt tight in the chest. "I am deaf." The ground shook slightly with impact tremors as one of the Autobots approached. She didn't turn away from the humans. Only Will would meet her eyes and her heart sank. "Do you have a problem with that?"

Will shrugged. "Ratchet told us when we came inside," he admitted. "I guess he found your..." here he gestured to his ears. "When he scanned you outside."

Her lips thinned and she tried to stamp down on the indignation, knowing that scanning was a natural thing for them. Jazz had explained that it would be like taking away an eye if they stopped. It was another way for them to see even if it seemed a huge invasion of privacy to humans.

"They're called cochlear implants," the Autobot behind her said, revealing himself as Jazz. A large hand rested on her shoulder again and she took strength from that gentle touch. It also gave her a very convenient excuse to leave.

"I'm sorry," she said, trying not to trip over her words. "I have work tomorrow so I really have to leave."

Will stood when she did and offered his calloused hand. "It was very nice to meet you," he said sincerely. "Please come again sometime."

She mustered a shaky smile for him before walking crisply back to Jazz. He had transformed and tucked her bag into his passenger seat. Without looking back, she got in and closed the door.

The tears didn't come until late that night. She went downstairs and collapsed on the couch. Immediately she got up again and went into the kitchen. Jazz would surely see that she was up because of the light. Let him, she didn't care.

Personally she hated the cliche that weepy women ate ice cream out of the carton and sat in front of the TV. But sometimes it was the only thing to ward off the tears and that is why she always kept her favorite flavor (chocolate) in the fridge.

With her ice cream and a spoon in tow, she went back to the living room and curled up on the couch. She turned on the TV and found that there was some corny sci-fi movie on, perfect to eat ice cream to.

Light shimmered behind her and in the reflection of the TV, she could see a vaguely humanoid shape. The shape came around the end of the couch and she saw that it was Jazz's holoform.

He said something and Katie shook her head, using her spoon to point at her ears. _Ratchet fixed it at the base,_ he signed. Katie squinted at him. It did look much more solid and not prone to jerky static like a bad TV picture from decades ago. _Why are you up so late?_

_Because,_ she signed back and scooped more ice cream into her mouth. _Do I need to have a curfew because I'm deaf?_

Then she bit her lip and looked away from Jazz as the first tear fell. With a growl she couldn't hear she shoved another spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. The couch dipped and she glanced over at Jazz, surprised that the holoform had substance other than merely being light. Jazz offered no explanation, merely settling himself beside her so that her right leg and his left were touching from hip to ankle.

_So it's because of Sam,_ Jazz signed, twisting his torso so she could see his motions.

The tears came in a silent flood now, more of frustration than sadness. _Not _just _Sam,_ she signed back angrily. _Everyone except maybe Will. _He _didn't seem bothered by it._

Jazz reached out with a cool hand and wiped away her tears and she leaned her head into his palm. _They're just stupid,_ he signed back, drawing his hand gently away. _Except maybe Will. He seems like a decent guy._

He got a watery smile at the echo of her words. _People are just so…_ she flailed her hands, trying to find the words.

_Petty? Xenophobic?_

_Yes!_ Katie agreed. _One face says that being different is good while the other judges you for it, even if you can't help it, if it wasn't your fault!_ She continued the sign and slammed her fist into her thigh.

Gently Jazz caught her hand and held it until she relaxed. She scooped more ice cream into her mouth and the two of them watched the movie for a while. He tapped her on the shoulder after a little while. _Our differences define us,_ he told her when she looked at him. _You're deaf. So what? You're smarter than a lot of people that can hear. You can speak fluently in two languages _and _in ASL._ _You're very accomplished for one so young even in the eyes of your people. _

Katie sighed. _As if that matters. I'm still different. People will still hate me for what I am._

_It doesn't matter,_ Jazz insisted. _Now why don't you just prove everyone wrong? Surely you can't still be bothered by all of this._

Katie made a face. _I'm going to go to sleep._ She signed and put away her ice cream. At the doorway to the stairs she looked back to find Jazz's holoform still sitting on the couch. _Goodnight._

Behind her, Jazz's holoform sighed. "Goodnight, Katie," he said wearily before disappearing.


	3. Fawn

"What's wrong?" The receptionist asked as soon as she saw her.

"Nothing," Katie snapped too forcefully to be believed. She grabbed her coat into the rack and shrugged into it so forcefully that the pens she kept in the breast pocket popped out and clattered to the floor. "Not a goddamn thing."

The receptionist pursed her lips but didn't argue, instead watching her boss stomp past her desk and into the back. When Katie came back out, she wordlessly handed her the file folder she was looking for. She seemed calmer, like a switch had been flipped. Working with her patients had that effect on her.

"Sorry, Liz," Katie told her, squeezing her shoulder as she passed. "I was just dealing with some idiots yesterday."

Liz snorted. "Don't let them get to you," she advised wisely.

Her boss shook her head. "I'll be out back if anyone comes in. You know how to reach me."

She hadn't been gone for fifteen minutes when a panicked young man burst into the office. "I hit something! I'm so sorry, I hit something!"

Liz was amused. He looked like he just got his license. It was probably the first time he hit anything and the poor kid was freaking out. She hit the button to page Katie and stood. "Let's have a look, then, okay?" she asked soothingly and the poor kid seemed mollified. "What's your name?"

He hesitated for a moment too long before he said, "Henry."

"There won't be any marks against you," she said gently. "What's your _real_ name?"

"Henry" clammed up and shook his head. Liz shrugged and followed him out to the dark blue Mustang parked in front of the large animal rescue in such a haphazard way that suggested that Henry had driven up the driveway, threw it in park, and then raced in. Really, she expected this kind of panic of a husband at the ER whose wife was going into labor than a teen like "Henry", but to each their own, she assumed.

Wringing his hands nervously, "Henry" opened the door to the back seat, revealing a fawn resting comfortably on the seat, wrapped in an emergency blanket. The blond woman holding it smiled. "He insisted on bringing it here," she said by way of explanation.

Liz shook her head, amused. "No, it's fine," she assured her and "Henry". "If this little guy or girl was the one hit then it'd probably die in the wild. Now it has a chance to live. Let's get him inside."

The blond patted Henry's hand as she got out of the car. "Don't worry, Blue," she said gently. Liz wondered why they were traveling together. She looked too young to be his mother and nothing like him so they couldn't be siblings. Not to mention the woman had an Aussie accent and Henry had none. Curiouser and curiouser.

"The doctor is out back working on a horse with a corneal ulcer," she explained as she led the way into the main building, the bundled fawn in her arms. "She'll be in in a few minutes. You're welcome to stay if you would like."

In one of the mirrors she saw Henry look at the woman hopefully. The woman sighed. "I already called in sick," she said indulgently. "We can stay if you want to."

Liz struggled not to smile. If they were dating they must have a large age gap between them, she mused as she set the fawn down on an examination table and pulled on a pair of gloves. "Where'd you guys find him?" she asked instead as she began to unwrap the animal.

"Down the road a ways," the blond said evasively. "Near the woods."

The back door banged open. "Exam room 1!" Liz yelled and wondered for a moment if Katie heard her. She shook it off. Even if she hadn't, she'd figure out quick enough where her receptionist and new patient was.

Katie entered a moment later. "So what's the problem?"

That opened the floodgates for poor Henry and the whole jumbled story flew from his lips in a confusing, tangled mess. Katie nodded along and briefly Liz wondered if she was really listening or could even hear him as her attention was on Liz and the little fawn.

"Well," she said when he was done, and Liz realized that she had listened enough to get the idea and when he was done rambling. "I certainly won't turn down a little cutie like him." Liz pulled back the blanket to reveal the fawn's broken leg. "And _that_ needs to be set. Hold him, Liz, I'll get some morphine."

Henry wrung his hands until the blonde put her hand on his shoulder. "He's in pain?"

Gently, Katie smiled at him as she pulled on a pair of gloves and got the items necessary. "He was hit by a car," she said gently. "And his little leg's broken. Poor little guy might be going into shock."

"Come on," the blond said gently. "Let's leave them to their work. We can wait outside. I'm sure they'll tell us when they're done." A glance at Liz had the receptionist nodding in agreement. "See? We'll see the fawn when they're all done."

Ten minutes later, Liz came out. "Her assistant came in," she explained. "They're working on him now. Don't worry, he'll be fine." Henry seemed to droop in relief and Liz and the blonde shared a smile. "Come on, you look like you need some kitten therapy."

Henry looked up at her. "What?"

"We have some rescued animals up for adoption," Liz explained. "Some are big like a few of the cows and horses out back. Some are housepets. Cats, dogs, that sort of thing. You wanna see them? You look like you need to play with a few to calm down."

The blonde chuckled. "We'd love to," she answered for them and tugged Henry to his feet.

"They're so...fluffy." Henry said as they entered the kitten enclosure. "Oh!" he exclaimed quietly as one tripped over his foot. "They're so clumsy!"

Liz laughed. "I think I can let you guys stay here for a bit. Just don't let any of them in cages out and don't let these guys escape out the door. I gotta go and man the front desk again."

"Thanks," the blonde told her quietly and the way her eyes flashed to Henry made it obvious to Liz that she was thanking her for taking care of the kid. Liz winked back at her as she slipped out the door.

"We can't keep a fawn," the woman told Henry sternly. Her accent gave Katie a little bit of trouble but she spoke clearly enough for her to understand most of it even when she was turned away.

The poor kid looked heartbroken. "But Maggie," he begged as he hovered over the still-drugged animal. "I hit it, I should take care of it."

"The hotel won't let it in and we can't just leave it in...in the car!" the woman, apparently named Maggie, argued back. "I appreciate that you're trying to take responsibility but we simply can't keep it."

Katie watched as poor Henry's face fell even more. "Well," she said, drawing their attention. "This _is_ an animal rescue _and_ this thing needs to be taken care of. I can keep it here and if you want you can help me take care of it."

It amused her to no end how torn the poor kid looked. "We can come in before work," Maggie suggested. "And stop by again at the end of the day if you're still here."

"I live down the street," Katie assured them. "It won't be a problem if you come by late."

Maggie smiled. "Now you've done it," she told the vet, eyes twinkling. "You'll never get rid of him now!"

Turning, Henry looked at Maggie with the most convincing begging eyes Katie had ever seen. Will, her assistant, tapped her shoulder. _Should I take him back out?_

Katie nodded. "Will's going to take him out back and get him taken care of. Do you want to watch or should I ask Liz to give you a tour?" She glanced at her watch. Looking up, she was rewarded with Henry's brilliant smile.

_Poor kid was distraught over hitting that deer_, Katie said and reached for the glass of wine for a sip.

_I thought you're supposed to leave them and not interfere?_ Jazz asked.

Katie took her time answering. She was _tired_. After Henry and Maggie were taken care of, she had to go on call to a nearby farm. The superstitious farmer had screamed at Liz that a chupacabra had attacked his flock. She had spent most of what remained of her day loading dead sheep into a wagon with the help of mute Will and Scary Jack. Only one of the sheep had survived the carnage and it was so badly hurt that the best thing for it was to put it down.

Understandably, the farmer had been _furious_. Near the end she wasn't sure what language he had been speaking in but she had seriously considered turning down her cochlears. But that wouldn't be professional.

She sighed. _Yeah, that's usually what you do. You just try not to interfere._

Jazz chuckled and let her lay her head on his lap. _That can't be the most stressful part of your day._

He laughed when Katie sighed gustily and sat up to reach for her wine. _Someone slaughtered a flock of sheep._ She admitted to him tiredly. _The farmer is of course very angry._

Her friend thought it over. _It attacked in daylight?_

Katie shrugged and finishing her wine, stretched back over Jazz's lap. He obligingly rubbed her hairline and she relaxed. _I don't know. I just got the call around 8, managed to get there close to 9. I had to close down the vet shop. Poor Liz was stuck there all day with the shelter though._

Jazz tapped her collarbone and she opened her eyes. _Do you know what happened?_

_No,_ Katie replied with a gusty sigh. _We just had to clear the bodies. Only one was left alive but we had to put it down. You'd have to be a god to save it._ She closed her eyes again and let Jazz pet her hair again. _Liz said Snowy got adopted again today though._

She could feel the hologram's torso rise and fall like he had taken a deep breath and cracked an eye open. _Hopefully they'll keep him this time._

Katie closed her eyes again and wiggled against Jazz. _Yes,_ she told him simply. _I really do hope so._

She tried not to groan when Jazz tapped her collarbone again a few minutes later. _I'm going back to the base again tomorrow morning,_ he signed to her. _There are medical updates that I need to get from Ratchet._ She noted with considerable amusement that the sign he used for 'Ratchet' was the 'r' shape tapped against his nose in reference to the broad olfactory sensor on the yellow-green mech.

_Still not your keeper,_ she signed back, closing her eyes. She gave a jaw-popping yawn and settled again as Jazz rubbed her forehead again.

Jazz pinched her nose lightly and smirked when Katie groaned. _Go upstairs. Go to sleep._

_But your lap is so nice, _Katie whined.

Katie flushed when Jazz winked down at her. _I know, babycakes, you don't need to tell me that._

_Okay, _now _I'm going upstairs._ Jazz laughed, to her, silently. _Goodnight, Jazz._

Her friend winked at her again, taking great joy in embarrassing her. _Dream of me,_ he teased. _I know I'll yearn after your forevermore._

Katie laughed. _You're so corny_. Jazz smirked at her before disappearing.


	4. Target

Henry showed up bright and early the next morning, just as she was driving down to the barn to feed the animals. Maggie seemed closer to dead than asleep.

"Long day," she croaked and Katie smiled at her.

"Let's swing by my house," she suggested. "I got a pot of coffee and some fresh berries. That'll perk you up."

Henry fidgeted. "I'm sorry, I dragged her out here so early it didn't occur to me that you guys might not be awake."

"It's fine," Katie assured him, inwardly laughing. Jazz was much the same way when he got excited and had on a few occasions packed a bag for her and loaded her in the car. Once she woke up almost all the way to Vegas, not having realized that she had been kidnapped by her friend. "The animals can wait for a little bit. We can't have you falling asleep at your job." She glanced at the navy blue mustang in the driveway of the animal rescue. "You can ride up in my truck. The back road isn't the best maintained. I haven't gotten around to getting it paved yet."

They piled into her big truck and rattled along up to the large farmhouse. Katie was relieved to see that Jazz had already gone even though she wished she could sit down to another breakfast with him.

"How can you drive if you can't hear?" Henry asked abruptly as they were pulling up to the front of her house.

That seemed to wake Maggie up. "_Blue!_" she hissed, coloring.

"It's okay," Katie assured her. _At least he wasn't like Sam,_ she thought grumpily. "I have cochlear implants," she explained to Henry.

Henry mulled that over. "I'm sorry if that was wrong to ask," he said with innocent sincerity and Katie had to smile at him. "I was just curious. At first I wasn't sure what was on your head. I thought it was headphones but you don't wear headphones there usually." Katie's lips twitched as she stomped nonexistent muck from her boots in the mudroom. She listened idly as she switched her boots to more comfortable shoes and led them into the kitchen.

"It's okay," she said again. "I've heard worse."

"You have such a lovely house," Maggie told her, looking around. "Thank you for inviting us."

Katie gave her a lopsided smile. "I don't have many guests. But I'm glad you like it." She poured Maggie a cup of coffee and brought out cream and sugar for her. "I have a few avocado eggs left and I think I have a hash that my roommate made if you guys would like some food. And I think J went out to pick some fruits too." _Those things were his babies_, she thought but didn't say. The garden out back was planted and maintained by him. Katie herself had a black thumb and killed any plant that she touched.

"None for me, thanks," Henry said as Maggie gulped her coffee. "I think Maggie might like some. I don't think she's eaten this morning."

Nodding, Katie pulled out a few plates and started loading food on it from the stove. As she put the plates in front of her and Maggie and brought the pot to the table, her phone buzzed. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was a text from Jazz asking if she had the food he made.

'_Maggie and Henry are here again,'_ she texted back. '_I'm sharing some with them.'_

'_Let me know how it is.'_ He replied.

For someone that didn't eat, couldn't taste, and couldn't smell in a way that humans understood, Jazz sure liked to cook. Despite his apparent sensory handicaps (in a human's perspective), he was a far better cook than she was.

Maggie fell upon her plate with gusto and wordlessly Katie refilled her coffee. '_I think Maggie likes it, judging by the way she's inhaling it.'_ she texted her friend.

'_Your opinion matters more to me.'_ Jazz responded.

With a little smile, Katie ate.

* * *

She got a later start than normal, but Maggie and Henry were more than willing to assist her in feeding her animals. Henry loved the fawn in particular and hovered over it as it waddled around its enclosure. Maggie got a few pictures of him doing so and promised to email a few to Katie to hang in her office.

They were just leaving as Liz showed up. _They're back?_ She signed.

_Henry wanted to feed the fawn._ Katie signed back. _Poor thing probably dragged Maggie out of bed._

Liz giggled and went to her spot behind the counter. "We better go," Maggie said, perhaps guessing they were talking about her and Henry. "Or I'll be late to work. Tell that roommate of yours to call me if he opens a restaurant."

"_She_ got to eat J's cooking but not me?" Liz demanded.

"You never show up early enough for breakfast," Katie told her over her shoulder. To Maggie she said, "If you want to come by after your work, I'll probably be here late. I have a lot of appointments and I'll have one of my assistants take you to that fawn."

Henry gave her a bright smile. "Thanks! I'm really sorry to cause you so much trouble but I feel like I should make it up to it for hitting it and then taking it away from its mom. I know I probably shouldn't have but I just kind of panicked, you know?"

Smiling, Katie held up her hand to stop him. It had all become a jumbled mess with her implants but she got the general gist of it. "It's all right. I'm just glad we could help him."

With a last wave, the two of them got into the navy mustang and drove away. _He's such a dork,_ Liz signed. _I wonder if he's single?_

_I appreciate that you're practicing,_ Katie signed back with a wry smile. _But your job here isn't to find dates._

Liz rolled her eyes. _But Professor_, she whined. Laughing, Katie shook her head and mimed turning off her cochlears, snagging the folder off Liz's desk as she passed.

"Abscesses? Again?" Katie asked out loud as she read the file. "I'll be out back then, I guess. Send Alesandro out back when he gets here. He'll be a little late today."

"Right-o, boss," Liz called after her. "Have fun with those abscesses!"

Katie grunted and slammed the back door shut.

* * *

Alesandro didn't show up as late as Liz expected but when he did, he showed up in a dramatic way, leaping out of the back of a truck before it stopped and leaving a smear of bright red blood on the front door. "Where's Katie?" he demanded.

"Out back," Liz said as she jumped to her feet. Alesandro looked like he wanted to run through the office then reconsidered and ran around outside. Briefly Liz considered paging Katie but figured that Alesandro would reach her by the time she received it. So with a sigh she pulled on gloves and set about cleaning the bloody door. It bothered some people to see blood on the door, she noticed.

He must have caught Katie as she was finishing up with the abscessed cow because a few minutes later her boss-slash-professor ran back through. There was muck on the edges of her coat and she tracked more of it on the clean white tile. Liz eyed it with undisguised annoyance which Katie ignored.

"Another farm was attacked," she said, reaching for the emergency bag she kept in a closet near the door. "Call Will and see if he can come in today to deal with what he can then call all the appointments and let them know we have to reschedule."

Liz sighed as they ran back out, then again when the phone rang. Ripping off her gloves, she plucked the phone up. "Animal rescue and veterinary this is Liz, how may I help you?" she asked, eyeing the muck stains on the ground. She did _not_ look forward to cleaning that.

"_Hi Liz, it's J. Is Katie there?"_

"No," Liz huffed. "She just ran out. You missed her literally by a few seconds."

A brief paused. "_I thought she was staying in today?"_

Liz tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear and flipped through the appointment book. As Katie had told the weird fawn couple, she had a lot of appointments and Liz didn't look forward to calling all of them to reschedule. Most were farmers and none of them were really major operations so they'd probably understand, especially if Liz told them why her boss had run out the way she had. "She was but Alesandro showed up covered in blood and called her out to muster. Another farm's been attacked."

"_Do you know where?"_ J asked and she shrugged even though she knew he couldn't see her.

"Nah, they didn't tell me. I'd guess on the way here from Alesandro's? I have no idea when she'd be back. Were you supposed to get lunch together?"

J sighed in frustration on the other end but she knew it wasn't at her or Katie. "_No, I was going to swing by and surprise her. But if she's busy with another slaughter like the last one I'll just stay out."_

"She gave that fawn couple some of your food," Liz whined petulantly. "But she _never_ shares with me!"

Her boss's roommate laughed. "_You're never here early enough for breakfast,"_ J teased and Liz sputtered.

"Just 'cause I don't wake up at the ass-crack of dawn doesn't mean you guys shouldn't share with me!" She complained and then froze. "Wait wait wait wait. You're doing this on purpose! She said the same thing to me this morning!"

"_I will neither confirm nor deny that,"_ J told her with a laugh.

Liz grunted. "I'll bet." Looking again at the muck on the tile she sighed. "Yo J, I'm real sorry but I gotta go and clean up a bit. Katie tracked muck all over the tile and if anyone comes in they'll freak if they see it."

"_Gross,"_ J replied. "_But yeah, I gotta go soon too. Maybe next time I'll just swing by and take _you _to lunch."_

"I'll take you up on that once the farms stop being attacked." Liz grumbled. "If all the help wasn't called out every other day I could go with you. Let Katie get all covered in weird bodily fluids all she wants while _I_ get to have a good lunch with good guy with a nice ass."

J laughed again. "_Gross. To all of that." _

Liz transferred the call to the cordless and walked into the side room to get the swiffer. "What?"

"_You're _way _too young for me."_ J teased.

"You can't be much older than Katie," Liz insisted. "And she's what, thirty?"

"_Nah, I'm older than that."_

"_Older?_" Liz demanded as she began filling the reservoir container of the swiffer steamer in the closet. "Impossible! If anything I'd guess you're younger." Hearing the bell on the door ring, she swore quietly to herself. "Just a minute!" she called over her shoulder, pressing the mouthpiece of the phone into her chest. "Sorry, J, someone just came in. I'll talk to you later?"

"_Okay. Have a good day, Liz. If Katie comes back early ask her to give me a call?"_

Liz smiled. They totally pined for each other, she was sure of it. "Yeah, okay. And I'll tell her you _luuuurve_ her too." The phone clicked, signalling that J had hung up. Laughing, she tucked the phone in her breast pocket and sealed the reservoir, turned off the water, and dragged the contraption out into the front room. "Sorry for the mess, just give me a sec and I'll have it cleaned up."

The group of men standing in the entry looked at her in eerie unison. While she nervously put the cordless away and then began to clean the drying muck, the men continued to watch her silently.

"Um, excuse me, please," she said quietly to one of the men, realizing he had been standing in one of Katie's bootprints. "Just let me get that cleaned up."

He moved his foot and she frowned, realizing that the print, still a little wet, was not affected. She had been _sure_ that he had been standing in it. He didn't move away and as she carefully cleaned the spot, she noticed that the swiffer went _through_ his shoe.

Now she was concerned and froze, slowly turning to look at the men. They stared back with cold _red_ eyes.

* * *

Katie couldn't get the smell of blood out of her nose or the sticky feel of it on her arms. Her coat was permanently stained, she was sure and her clothes were probably not much better. Most likely she'd have to burn it all. She doubted J would let her into the house looking and smelling the way she did.

"Yuck," Alesandro said, wiggling his fingers in the soaked glove. "My neighbors will probably think I'm a serial killer now."

They fell silent as the farmer came up to them. "I just wanted to thank you," he said quietly. "I'm sorry you got stuck helping me with the cleanup but I really appreciate it."

Katie gave him a shaky smile. "I needed to look over the bodies so I can help you make the report," she reminded him. "It didn't seem right to do that and then leave."

The farmer grunted as the door to the farmhouse slammed open. "Still. I appreciate it. C'mon, let's get you cleaned up. Can't have you getting in your truck like that."

"Dr. Keynes?" Alesandro nudged her gently.

_Someone's calling you,_ he signed clumsily and she looked around for who could have been calling her. She saw the farmer's wife running over, a dish towel clutched in her hands.

"Yes?" Katie asked, peeling off her work gloves and grimacing when she saw that her fingers were bloody and pruny. Gross.

Hearing nothing, she looked up to find the farmers wife sobbing. She glanced at Alesandro who looked horrified. She nudged him gently. _My cochlears stopped working. I can't hear anything._

After a moment of hesitation and a deep but shaky breath, Alesandro signed slowly and deliberately, _the office attack._

The farmer snatched the dish towel from his wife and handed it to her. She took it from the farmer with a nod of thanks and quickly dried her hands of blood and grabbed her cochlears to fiddle with it. "My battery is dying," she said when she could hear again. Judging by the muffled sounds she heard when she spoke, the setting was too low so she was probably talking too loud. "What about an office?"

"Your office was attacked," the farmer told her loudly and she felt like someone poured a bucket of cold water over her. She ran to her truck and yanked the door open, fumbling for her phone with hands still red with dried blood.

_WHERE ARE YOU?_ J texted just as she picked it up. There were about ten other messages of a similar tone and a few missed calls. If the texts weren't any indication, the calls told her how worried he was, as she didn't like taking phone calls because she couldn't see the speaker's lips.

She called him and put the phone on speaker before climbing into the cab. A rocking of the car told her that Alesandro had jumped into the bed. She threw the car into gear and drove as fast as she dared to down the farmer's road.

Jazz's voice came muffled over the phone and she tucked the device into her bra so she could hear it better without taking her hands off the wheel. "_Where are you?"_ He sounded panicked.

"I'm still at the farm," she yelled back. "We just finished cleaning up. What happened to the office?"

"_I see you. Is that Alesandro?"_

Glancing in her mirrors, she saw the familiar form of the pontiac solstice behind her. Alesandro waved frantically to her and she hit the brakes. Her assistant threw open the dividing window. "_Look_!" he yelled, pointing over her shoulder. A plume of thick black smoke rose from somewhere ahead of them.

Seconds later, Jazz's holoform yanked open the door. As he opened his mouth to speak, her cochlears went out. _My ears are gone!_ She signed to Jazz as he yelled something at her.

She didn't need him to sign to know that he was yelling wildly creative profanities. Alesandro looked impressed despite himself. _Get in the car,_ he signed to her.

_But I'm all bloody and the truck drives better on the access,_ she argued.

Jazz had turned his head to say something to Alesandro but she knew that he had "seen" what she told him. After he said his piece to Alesandro, he signed to her, _You're safer in me than in this piece of scrap. Alesandro will drive the truck back and you will stay safe. _He reached over and unbuckled her seatbelt before dragging her out of the car.

_What's wrong? _Katie asked as she complied. He was never so rough with her and his blue eyes were far too bright.

_Something attacked the office,_ he repeated. _I think they were enemies._

Katie shook her head as Jazz threw himself into gear and tore down the road. While her truck could and did do better than the low sports car on the unpaved access roads, Jazz could outpace and out distance it on paved roads. Soon she realized that Jazz wasn't headed toward the office. _Enemies? And where are we going? Don't think I haven't noticed that we're not going in the right direction!_

A panel on the dash shifted and words scrolled across the screen. _Enemies of the Autobots. They may have figured out who you are and attacked. I don't know. The attack seems suspicious though and I don't want to take any chances._

Angrily, Katie kicked at the floor. _I need to get there for Liz! I have responsibilities and I need to see it through. That's _my _office and _my _house._

Silence (not that she could really hear anything with her ears gone anyway) reigned in the car for far too long for her comfort. Then the display switched to the live news feed with subtitles. Seeing the images on the tiny screen drove it all home for her and then she broke down.

Suddenly all she could smell was blood in the car. It was goats blood but it felt to her like it was Liz's and Henry's cute little fawn and all her shelter animals. It was the blood of the abscessed cow that she had treated so many hours ago and the animals waiting for homes. It was Big Bertha, the parrot that Liz claimed was their mascot and the chickens that she hated so much and threatened almost daily to kill and cook.

Will Lennox and his squad were on the scene and Jazz showed her the feeds from their helmet-cams without her asking. She didn't need to. He always anticipated her needs. What they didn't anticipate was the first picture that showed up on the screen. She didn't remember fainting but the bloody, pulpy mess that was Liz's head haunted her subconscious.

* * *

"Why attack an _animal rescue_?" Epps asked wiping sweat from his forehead. "And why kill this poor girl?"

"And all the animals," John muttered, sucking his teeth. He popped another stick of gum in his mouth and smacked it loudly. A few winced at the sound but said nothing.

Lennox grunted and dug in his pockets for a stick of Vick's. "It's not just here. It's up at the house too," he reminded them. "It really looks like they were going for Katie since they got both."

He barely jumped when Ironhide's holoform appeared next to him. "There've been reports of farm mutilations recently," his guardian grumbled. "That's why Katie was out and the offices were empty today. No sign of human casualties on those attacks though. Just all the animals."

"Could they be related?" Epps asked, digging his toe into the dirt. "Or just coincidence?"

Lennox shrugged. "It could go both ways. But the other attacks had no human casualties _and_ happened at night. This one happened during the day."

"Jazz said she was supposed to be in all day today," Ironhide said. "It was a busy day for her and she had appointments lined up until late."

John smacked his gum again. "Looks like evidence of targeting to me."

Silently they watched the EMTs wheel the body bag on the gurney out to their ambulance and load it in. "Hell of a way to go," Epps said, clicking his tongue. "Was it just me or did she look like she was tortured?"

"Maybe," Ironhide grunted. "Hell of a mess in there." They didn't chide him for insensitivity this time because it was certainly true.

They fell silent as the officer in charge walked over with a scowl on his face. His moustache had white chunks and shone with an oily sheen where he had rubbed a Vick's stick under his nose. "I don't like it," he growled to them when he was in earshot. "But I guess I gotta turn this investigation over to you."

"Thank you," Lennox said, trying to sound sincere. He hoped it didn't sound like he had a stick up his ass. "I really appreciate it."

The officer grunted. "Just catch 'im."

The four of them watched the officers drive away, some casting looks at them that ranged from angry to bloodthirsty to grateful at them as they loaded up and left. Lennox resisted the urge to smoke a cigarette. "Let's start from the beginning then. Who found them?"

Ironhide nodded to the nearby field and the car that was barely visible in the growing shadows. "The kid and his girl did. He hit a rat or something yesterday and brought it here. The vet let him help take care of it. They were coming back to check on it or something."

John smacked his gum. "Shit, that sucks."

"D'jya talk to them about it?" Epps asked Ironhide who shrugged. "I'll go do that then, I guess."

"They gave a report to the police," Ironhide rumbled.

"They might've left something out," Lennox pointed out. "Bobby, you got that."

Epps nodded and started wading through the grass. "We gonna walk through everything?" John asked, eyes on the blood-splattered door.

Grimly Lennox nodded. "Yeah," he said wearily. He was glad that he hadn't eaten much that day. "Yeah, we are."

* * *

Jazz was holding her when she woke up and for a while she stared up at the ceiling of some unfamiliar room while she tried to piece together what happened. Her friend pressed a glass of water into her hands and as she drank she saw the red stains on her hands and it all came rushing back.

_Liz?_ She signed hopefully.

Wordlessly Jazz shook his head. With one hand he steadied the glass which had begun to shake. He took the cup from her and put it on the side so she could sign.

_What happened?_

Jazz rearranged her on his lap so she could see what he signed. _We don't know yet. Will and some of his squad took over the investigation._

_How did you find out about it?_ She wanted to know.

She was only a little suspicious of his hesitation but she knew it was mostly because he didn't want to upset her any more than she already was. _The kid you were telling me about that hit the fawn? His name is Bluestreak. He's the guardian of Maggie - Margaret Madson - who is an advisor to Secretary of Defence._

Katie sighed. _I need a drink._ Jazz rubbed her back soothingly. _So now what?_

_I brought you to the Autobot base,_ Jazz signed to her. He combined the "A" sign with the sign for "face" for "Autobot" and she nodded when he paused to make sure she understood. _Ironhide will report in later to tell us anything they've found._

Katie swallowed hard. _I need...a bath. I need a bath._

_I got some clothes for you from some of the workers. They're in the bathroom over there. _Jazz told her.

She hugged him around the neck tightly before standing and hobbling to the bathroom. Though she wasn't injured but she _felt_ battered. A neat stack of folded clothes and towels lay on a shelf nearby and to her great joy there was a massive tub with a shower head. Attached was a smaller shower cubicle but it was still larger than the average half bath.

"God I love you, Jazz," she mouthed to herself as she went over to the tub and turned it on as hot as she could make it. Then she began to undress. A quick trip through the shower got the physical stains of the blood off her and as she sank into the bath which was almost too hot for her to bear helped her to pretend that it had never been there.

She thought back to Liz. By now the police or Will's squad would have called her parents and told them what had happened. What exactly they'd say she didn't know. Maybe they'd tell them that the same person that had been killing the livestock at night had attacked her. Maybe they'd say everything was under investigation.

A dark-skinned hand appeared and poured something into the bath from an unmarked bottle. She curled her legs into her chest and rested her head on her knees. The water began to foam and her skin tingled pleasantly. _From Ratchet_, Jazz signed. He put the bottle down and disappeared.

She should be mad at Jazz and that kid. What'd he say his name was? Bluestreak? The bad robots had surely come after them and that's why Liz was dead and all the animals and _God_ her _house_!

_I must be in shock_, she thought to herself as she uncurled and sank beneath the water. Nothing seemed to bother her anymore. The hot water burned her face and ears and eyelids and the burn in her lungs was a whole different pain.

A hand broke through the layer of bubbles and touched her shoulder. She followed it up and accepted the towel Jazz's holoform offered her to wipe her face. _Ratchet was worried,_ he signed in explanation when she glanced at him.

_Is he scanning me?_ Now she just felt tired and resigned and couldn't muster her emotions enough to be angrier.

Jazz's lips twitched. _He was. If I'm in here he stops._ Carefully he touched her cheek. _Are you okay?_

Katie sighed deeply and laid her head back against the rim of the tub. _I'm _tired.

_I can tell. You haven't said something snarky about me seeing you naked._

Katie didn't dignify that with a response, running her fingers through the bubbles in the cooling water. Wordlessly Jazz added more hot water. _Why aren't you more worried about me?_ She asked, staring at him until those unnatural blue eyes turned to meet hers.

_Because I know that right now you don't need someone to worry about you._ Jazz said simply. He said nothing about the near-invisible trickle of tears down her face or the subtle shaking of her lips and fingers.

_What do I need then?_

Jazz smiled. _You need fluffy towels, warm blankets, hot cocoa, and a big hug._ Katie looked dubious. _It's not going to fix everything but it will fix _you _until you can come to terms with everything._ She turned her head away and bit her lip. Once more she brought her knees to her chest and leaned her cheek against the bathtub. Jazz tapped her shoulder and she turned to look at him. _I made the cocoa myself,_ he wheedled, wiggling his eyebrows at her. He offered her what looked to be a very comfortable towel and she hesitated before standing and allowing him to wrap her up tightly. His arms lingered around her as he hugged her tightly to his holographic chest.


	5. Trippin'

**So I'm crazy and just realized that it was NaNoWriMo and once more I missed the start. But this time I caught it early enough so I decided to participate for once. This means that _Friendship Like Phosphorus_ will suffer a little and updates will be slower than I anticipated. Don't worry because Katie's a pushy sort of muse so her and Chief will push the story along now that the hardest part is out of the way. **

**~DC**

* * *

Katie looked up as Jazz placed a massive pile of food in front of her. _Eat_, he signed sternly.

_I'm busy_, Katie signed back.

When she turned away Jazz slapped her shoulder to get her attention again. He grabbed the laptop away from her and put it behind him where she couldn't reach it. _No. You'll eat right now._

_No. I'll do no such thing,_ Katie signed angrily. _I have things to take care of, bills to pay, and patients to treat!_

Jazz sat down on the table, pulling his feet up on the bench next to her. _Yes. And you can do that _after _you eat. Right now you need food._

His friend leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. _I'm busy_, she signed again and reached for her notepad. She snatched it away before Jazz could and held it out of his reach.

Sighing, Jazz propped his elbow on his knee and his head on his fist. He stared her down.

_Look,_ she signed, tucking her notepad under a thigh to keep him from grabbing it. _I can't just drop everything because everything was destroyed. I still have to go to work._

_Why_? Jazz wanted to know. _Why can't you just take a break? You need it._

_I have patients I need to take care of and customers to see. People and animals won't stop having problems I can solve for a little thing like this._ Katie told him stubbornly and Jazz sighed.

_I'll make you a deal,_ he told her. _You stop and eat _this whole plate_. _I _will help you with the paperwork you have here. _And _I will help you find a place to continue your practice. You just need to let me take care of you._

Katie scowled at him but she couldn't deny that his help would be incredibly beneficial. _Don't you have duties here?_

That earned her a crooked smile. _I was awarded guardianship duties. So basically my only duty is you._ He reached down and pushed the plate of food toward her, smiling smugly when her stomach grumbled loud enough for him to hear. _So eat _this _while I take care of _that.

Grumbling to herself, Katie fell on the food, handing the notepad to Jazz as she did so.

"Jazz!" He turned as he climbed down from the table and waved to Sam and Mikaela as they approached. Bumblebee had been the one to call his name and seeing him in his holoform at the table, activated his own. "Hi Katie." He called, seeing the human eating. When she didn't respond, he glanced at Jazz who pointed at his ears and shook his head.

"We heard that you got attacked," Mikaela said as she sat down across from Katie. The deaf woman looked up in surprise, having not heard them approach. "Are you okay?"

Katie glanced at Jazz who signed a quick translation at her. "The batteries in her cochlear implants went out," he explained to the teens. "I'm gonna go out later and get more but right now she can't hear at all."

"Oh," Mikaela said, glancing at Katie who went back to eating though she kept her face turned toward them to see if they were speaking to her. "So what is she doing right now? Is she alright?"

Jazz frowned at her. "She's eating," he pointed out. "I'm helping her with some paperwork and what looks like the appointments she needs to make up for her practice."

"She's a doctor?" Sam asked, eyeing Katie's plate. Though she couldn't hear him she could see the intent in his gaze and she scowled at him, jabbing at his hand with her fork when he tried to steal from her plate. "Can they do that? Deaf people, I mean."

"She's a vet, isn't she, Jazz?" Bumblebee asked quickly, seeing the deepening frown on Jazz's face. "Runs - I guess it would be _ran_ \- a large animal shelter?"

Katie glanced at Jazz. Under the table on his leg she signed, _they're talking about me, aren't they?_

_Yes. I got it, though,_ Jazz signed back against her leg. After casting a suspicious glance all around, Katie returned to eating through the large plate of food Jazz had given her. It warmed him (as the humans said) to know that she trusted him enough that she gave eating her full attention.

"Yeah, she specialized in farm animals mostly," Jazz answered Bumblebee. "But she ran a rescue shelter out of her practice. All of it was done on her property."

Bumblebee looked surprised. "So they _actually_ burned down her house?"

Mikaela looked remorseful and put a hand on Katie's wrist. The deaf woman jumped in surprise and dropped her fork. Glancing reproachfully at the teens, she picked up her fork and continued eating. "Please tell her I'm so sorry," Mikaela said to Jazz, patting Katie's wrist again.

_She says she's sorry,_ Jazz signed to Katie after tapping her elbow gently.

His friend made a face. _I don't see you doing any paperwork,_ she chided with a wry smile.

"She says it's alright," Jazz lied when Mikaela made a curious noise. Bumblebee's holoform's lips twitched but he didn't correct him. _I'll get to it,_ he signed to Katie. _I _did _find a few listings for a new office for your practice._

Katie slapped Sam's hand away again and used a piece of toast to mop up the last bits of food on her plate. _Are they in easy driving distance from the farms?_ She signed while she chewed.

_Of course. I know what to look for._ Jazz teased.

"There you are!" Those that could hear turned to look at Will as he approached. "I'd like to get a statement from you, if you don't mind. The police want one and I need to submit something - oh."

Having noticed that everyone's attention had shifted, Katie turned belatedly to look at Will. She smiled and waved at the captain as he sat beside her. Jazz tapped Katie's shoulder and signed what had been said to her beyond her hearing. "She says that she's up for it if you're okay with me being there to translate. Or she could type it out while you ask questions." Jazz told Will. "I recommend the second. Not that I don't mind being there, it's just that it'll probably make her feel better about everything."

"I'm amazed she's doing so well," Will murmured. "She's remarkably calm."

"I'm trying not to hover," Jazz said dryly. "Katie, I'll go and get working on this paperwork and see if I can go out and get more batteries for your cochlears," he said out loud for everyone's benefit while he signed for Katie's. "Are you okay to go with Will right now?"

Katie glanced at Will then signed back to Jazz who nodded. The holoform got up and left, taking the notepad with him. "Shall we go?" Will asked, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder in what he hoped was a clear gesture to Katie. To his relief, she nodded and grabbing her laptop, followed him out.

"Think she'd cook for me?" Sam asked, eyeing the plate. Mikaela elbowed him hard in the side and he yelped.

* * *

Later that afternoon Will leaned back in his chair and frowned at the screen. He was so lost in thought that he jumped when Ironhide appeared behind him. His guardian grunted but didn't comment, instead eyeing the transcript on the computer.

"Anything useful?" the Autobot asked gruffly.

Will twisted, cracking his back. "She told me about her practice and her clientele. Mostly farmers, organic growers, that sort of thing. All local, no one that the Decepticons would want to capture. She said that her father went missing when she was young and her mother is in prison. No siblings, no close family members holding any high or important position that could instigate an attack. Only Jazz."

"That could be reason enough," Ironhide pointed out. "We can increase the guard on her which shouldn't be too hard because she and Jazz are still trying to get back into working."

Will glanced at his friend. "Well they _do_ need a truck to go to the farms…"

Ironhide grunted. "No. I go through enough with you and that _human larvae_."

"She's not a _larvae_," Will laughed. "But maybe we can get Ratchet to do it. Jazz just isn't suited to going over those country roads and Katie mentioned that he might make her clients uncomfortable."

The black Autobot grunted again but Will was used to the language of his grunts after working with him for so long. When he said nothing more, Will took it to mean _Ratchet might actually like that _and probably also _better him than me._

Will sighed deeply, looking back at the computer. "I'll formulate this transcript into a better report and submit it to the police since they've been asking for it. Heavily edited, of course. I'll keep this transcript in our files." he ran a finger through his hair and gripped his neck. "Let's also keep Maggie and Bluestreak here longer so they have more support. Secretary Keller also for safety reasons."

"We can't keep them here forever," Ironhide pointed out gruffly.

"If they are the ones attacking livestock they'll hit again soon," Will replied. "And if they wanted Katie so bad - if that _was_ what they were after - that they burned her house _and_ practice, they'll try for her again."

Ironhide grunted again and Will interpreted it as _maybe we should add a tighter guard to everyone._

Will shrugged as if he had spoken out loud. "If we start stifling them then it will breed resentment," he pointed out. "And it may cause them to be less accommodating."

The Autobot rolled his eyes. "I'll speak to Prime," he grumbled. "See if I can have him part with Ratchet to put him on detail with Katie. I'll submit your recommendations to him as well." Will nodded and the holoform disappeared.

He reached for the mug on his desk and sighed when he found that it was empty. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was well past lunch. He sighed again when the text tone on his phone went off.

'_Food. J made._' He really appreciated the simple message but for the love of it he couldn't figure out who it was from. Who was J?

A thought occurred to him and he texted back, '_Is this Katie?'_

'_Yes. Sorry.'_ A paused and then another text popped up. '_J gave me your number. He says you should eat.'_

Will's lips twitched. '_Okay, mom. ETA 5 minutes.'_

'_I'll keep Sam off your plate.'_ Chuckling, he put her name and number into his contacts, locked his computer, and left his office.

Katie was a different person by the time he got down to the mess hall. Evidently Jazz had gotten back from whatever errands he had been running and brought with him more batteries for her cochlear implants. Seeing him, she waved him over to the plate of food she had been jealously guarding, keeping her body between it and Sam.

"My implants work again," she said with a bright smile.

He returned it. "That's good. It was weird IM'ing you while we were sitting next to each other."

As he had hoped she laughed. "Ditto," she agreed and gestured to his plate. "Eat that before Sam steals it."

The teen pouted. "Why can't I have any?"

He yelped when Jazz's holoform appeared behind him. "Well I made it. So I get to decide."

"Gyros today," Katie told Will. "If he complains that it's not as good as his usual, it's because his plants were burned down or trampled."

Jazz threw himself dramatically into the seat on the other side of Katie. "Sacrilege! Those heathens!"

"No offense but I didn't expect you to be one for gardening or cooking," Will commented, gathering his gyro together and bringing it to his mouth.

The previously dead Autobot shrugged. "I didn't either but Katie has a lot of land out there. It gave me something to do while she was at the rescue." He made a face. "I had a whole crop of grapes, too."

"Is _that_ what you've been doing?" Katie wanted to know, pausing before taking a bite from her gyro.

Jazz nodded. "The grapes were coming in and softening. A few weeks more and I think I could've had a full harvest." He made a face as Katie smeared some tzatziki sauce on his arm when she patted it in sympathy. "I would've been bringing some in for you to taste in a few days to taste for sweetness."

Glancing at Will, Katie smiled. He was staring at the gyro in his hands. "For someone who can't taste or eat he cooks good, yeah?"

The captain nodded, eyes wide. They sat in silence for a while before Mikaela spoke up. "What made you take up gardening, Jazz? It doesn't seem like something you'd do."

"I think the fact that I had so much land had something to do with it," Katie said dryly. "_And_ I had my own car to take me to work and to my jobs."

Mikaela tilted her head to the side. "So why did you get another car?"

The vet got a strange look across her face. "A friend of mine offered to sell at a very good price for a Pontiac solstice." she said simply. "The driveway to my house and to the practice is paved but I didn't intend on driving him when I was going to work anyway."

Jazz laughed, seeing her discomfort at the question. "Not to mention I gotta provide for my girl, don't I? Growing her own produce is healthier and cheaper than having to do it through a grocery store."

The teen tilted her head to the side. "I guess," she said thoughtfully, distracted by Jazz.

The table rattled as Katie's phone rang and she glanced at her watch. Briskly she wiped her hands and snatched her phone up. "Sorry, I gotta take this."

Jazz frowned after her but distracted the others with the story of how he originally started farming and the arguments he got into with the farmers at the farmers market when his crops first came in.

* * *

"Your face is plastered all over the news!"

Katie rolled her eyes. "I'm _fine_," she told him. "I was out on a run when they hit. My assistant isn't, though." She glanced at her watch.

"That wasn't what I was getting at," he growled.

She scoffed. "Oh please, Keynes is a common enough surname," she informed him. "It's not like you want anything to do with me anyway."

"You forget who got you that farm."

"Yeah," Katie snapped back, annoyed. She closed her eyes briefly as a gust of wind kicked up fine dust into her face. "I got that farm from Gumma." Her watch rang and glancing at it, she saw that Jazz had texted her asking if she was all right. "Look, I have to go. I have a class today."

"You shouldn't be out," the man on the other end insisted.

Katie scoffed again. "You can't stop me. I'll do what I want and whether I want it or not, I have to go teach today. They have an exam coming up and today is the review day."

"No. You should come in to the base and let me protect you," the man insisted. "My project is really important and I can't risk you complicating it."

"Of course," Katie drawled. "That's the most important part. Me screwing up your life. Whatever. Look. I gotta go so I'll talk to you later. Or not if you're so busy." Without waiting for a response, she hung up on him.

A familiar silver form, covered in dust, rolled leisurely around the corner and she found herself smiling. As she approached, she saw her bags in the backseat. "Ready for your review session, babycakes?"

She patted his hood affectionately and dusted herself off quickly before sliding into his seat. "I am now," she said, relaxing as he began to drive.

"Wanna talk about it?"

She ran her fingers gently over his steering wheel. "Not really," she murmured.

He didn't press her. He never did.

* * *

She got another call as class was getting out. It was an unfamiliar number so she answered it.

"Dr. Keynes?"

She tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear as she packed her bag. None of her students looked like they wanted to ask her any questions so she continued packing. "This is her. To whom am I speaking?"

"I'm Suzie. Suzie Behre." Katie racked her mind. Where did she hear that name before? "I adopted a cat from you a few days ago?"

Her watch buzzed and she glanced down to find that Jazz had texted her again. '_What's the hold-up?'_

Katie shook her head and waved to the last few students as she left. "Oh. Hi Mrs. Behre. Is there something wrong?"

"No, not really," the woman assured her. "He's fine and healthy but it's just not working out with us. I tried calling your office but no one's answering and we wanted to be sure we could bring him back."

Shaking her head, she tossed her bags in Jazz's backseat. "Yeah, my office is usually closed on Fridays." she said, deciding not to mention that it was also completely destroyed and that there was an ongoing investigation. Judging by how oblivious she seemed she'd probably think that it was for something like pedophilia or something unrelated and very unfair to Liz's memory.

"Well we can't take him another night," Mrs. Behre informed her. "So please open the office so we can return him."

Katie bit her lip to keep herself from snapping something rude in response. "Opening my office tonight is impossible," she began but was quickly interrupted.

"_We can't keep it_," Mrs. Behre hissed. "It needs to go!"

"I cannot open the office," she repeated. "But I can come and pick him up."

There was a long silence. "I'm not comfortable with that." Mrs. Behre said primly and Katie pinched the bridge of her nose. "It's a safety issue."

She was tempted to remind her that she had her address on file. It was a requirement for adopting from her. "We can meet up somewhere. I just finished teaching a class at the community college."

There was a long moment of silence on the other end. "That is acceptable," Mrs. Behre sniffed. "I'll see you in an hour."

"Did she just hang up on you?" Jazz asked while Katie stared at the phone.

"I think so," she murmured wonderingly. Glancing at her watch she sighed. "J, will you call my appointment and push him back a half hour? We won't be able to make both of them."

Jazz groaned. "Bitches be trippin'," he grumbled. "He called, though, and asked to postpone anyway. I added it to your calendar."

"How did he call you?" Katie wanted to know, reaching to grab her papers from the backseat.

"He called your cell but I intercepted it since you were talking to Mrs. Crazyface."

Katie rolled her eyes. "Don't make a habit of it."

Her friend chuckled. "Never." He promised.

* * *

When Mrs. Behre finally showed up, Katie groaned inwardly. She was late by a half hour and Disney music was blaring from her Cadillac Escalade. Pasting a polite smile on her face, she stepped out of Jazz, praying that he wouldn't do something inappropriate.

The car parked two stalls down and just seemed to crack like an egg. The woman she guessed had to be Mrs. Behre yanked the poor cat's carrier out of the hands of two toddlers that seemed to think that their purpose in life was to shake the carrier. Katie winced as she heard a loud _thump_ from the cat hitting the side of the carrier but said nothing.

The other kid in the car began to wail for 'Bobby' to come back. Immediately the two toddlers that had been shaking the carrier lunged for it and once more Mrs. Behre yanked it out of their reach, wildly swinging it over her head. Katie caught a glimpse of wide green eyes full of feline terror.

Quickly Katie took the carrier away from the woman and held it over her head to keep the toddlers from reaching for it. One kicked at her ankle before Mrs. Behre yanked him back.

"Take it away," Mrs. Behre sniffed. She reached into the backseat (where the unseen child still wailed for 'Bobby') and flung a large beach bag full of stuff at her. "We will not be coming to your shelter any longer."

Briefly she considered telling the woman that the common practice for returning an adopted animal was to include a "review" of the animal and why it was returned but she really didn't want anything more to do with this disagreeable woman. The toddlers continued to try and take the carrier back while the woman continued to walk away. When she noticed that the kids weren't following her, she sent Katie such a poisonous look that she was momentarily baffled before yanking the kids away and all but throwing them in the car.

"_What_ was _that_?" Katie turned to find one of her students staring after the escalade as it pealed out of the parking lot.

Katie sighed, bringing the cat carrier down to a more reasonable level. "Bitches be trippin'," she informed him solemnly. She could hear Jazz's holoform cackling in the car.

* * *

They were halfway to the base when her phone rang. Again. She was understandably reluctant to answer it.

"You don't have to," Jazz pointed out while she considered the number.

Shaking her head, she answered. "I hear you had some trouble with a little fire sprite," Katie paused and looked at the number again.

"Chief?"

The man on the other end of the line laughed. "The one and only. Don't tell me you forgot about me, Katie Cat?"

As always he startled a laugh out of her. "No, not at all. How did you get this number?"

"I may be old but I can still work a phone book," she was informed. "_And_ your name was plastered all over the news."

Katie rolled her eyes. Jazz's console switched to a screen and typed _Are you okay? Who is it?_

_It's fine,_ she signed, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder. _It's...a family friend._

"I'm fine though," she told Chief. "I was out on a run when it happened."

Chief clucked his tongue on the other end. "Damn, that's some luck you got there. Sorry to hear about your girl Liza."

"Liz," she corrected quietly. "Her name was Liz."

The man sighed heavily. "Look, why don't you come by and visit? Have dinner with this old man and we can catch up."

_I had no dinner plans,_ Jazz typed to her. _I thought we'd go out and find a nice diner or something but we can swing by_.

"When would be good?" Katie asked, shaking her head. "I can't make tonight but I can do tomorrow."

Helpfully, Jazz pulled up her calendar on the screen and she thanked him absently. "Yeah," Chief agreed. "Tomorrow's fine."

"Who was that?" Jazz asked when the plans were made and she hung up.

He didn't like that she hesitated so long before answering. "An old family friend," she said evasively. "Look, Jazz, you mind if I take my work truck to this?"

If he had lips he'd frown at her. Instead he made do with growling his engine a little. "No," he told her tensely. "But I'm going to be nearby just in case something happens. You were attacked once and I wasn't there to help. This time I will be."

Katie smiled sadly and patted his steering column. "Thanks, butthead," she said affectionately. Jazz just grunted. "Now about that diner…"

* * *

**Katie's "experience" with the phone actually sort of happened to me. One day I just got so many strange calls that I was incredibly reluctant to answer calls from strange numbers but I had to so I did it anyway. **

**Mrs. Behre is also based off a woman I met once whose demeanor swung from paranoid to simply crazy. It's a good thing I'm so mellow is all that I can say. **

**What I really wanted to say with this bottom piece is thank you for everyone who seems to be enjoying this. It's really nice to get the little notifications of people following or favoriting it and it helps my Katie-muse to push the story she wants to tell forward. So thanks for all your support and I promise I'll try not to forget it while I'm writing my submission for NaNoWriMo!**

**~DC**


	6. Family

**Hey guys, sorry for the delay, I promise I haven't been neglecting you (much)!**

**I just finished my story for NaNoWriMo - _thank God_ \- and will be focusing back on _Friendship Like Phosphorus_. Thank you so much for bearing with me._  
_**

**~DC**

* * *

"Hey," Katie looked up in surprise at the quiet greeting and gentle tap on the table. Maggie looked just as tired as that time she and Henry had come to feed the fawn. "Can I sit here?"

The way she asked, very quiet and almost nervous, nearly broke Katie's hear. It was as if she expected her to say no. "Yeah, sure, of course," Katie told her and Maggie sighed into her seat. With a wry smile she found an empty mug and poured the other woman a mug of coffee from the carafe beside her. "Jazz's special blend."

Maggie fell upon it, drinking it down so quickly that Katie was briefly worried that she'd scald herself. She refilled the mug when the other woman put it down. "Thank God for you," Maggie blurted. "You and Jazz. This coffee is _amazing_."

"I'd tell him you said so," Katie said dryly. "But it'd just go straight to his head, you know?"

The other woman chuckled. This time she just sipped at her coffee. "I wanted to apologize," she said suddenly. "They're telling me that it wasn't because of us but I can't help but think it was, you know? I should've told you."

It took Katie a minute or so to realize what she was talking about. "Oh. No, it wasn't you. I know it wasn't." She fiddled with her mug, swishing the coffee remaining in it around the sides. "Maybe it convinced them just a little more thinking that I was friends with you and Hen - sorry, Bluestreak, They already had their reason I'm sure." She bit her lip in case she said too much. "What they did was a terrible thing. Terrible people do terrible things."

Jazz appeared a moment later, bearing a large tray of food. He didn't appear surprised to see Maggie, greeting her warmly enough and putting a plate in front of her. "Breakfast sandwiches this morning, ladies," he said. "Toasted sourdough, arugula, grilled tomato, fried egg, and ham."

"Thanks, babycakes," Katie teased.

The Autobot winked at her. "Anything for you, honey bun." Cackling, he headed back to the kitchen.

Maggie was looking at her oddly. "Is something wrong?" Katie asked, cutting her sandwich. "Are you vegetarian? I'm sorry...uh."

"No, it's not that," Maggie said quickly, waving her hands. "It's...uh...this might be a very personal question but...ah...are you two…?"

Realizing what she was asking, Katie flushed. "_Oh!_" She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. "Oh, _no_. No, no, we're just roommates. Really." She bit her lips. "Friends."

Maggie was by no means stupid. You couldn't be stupid in a job like hers. The reaction, the almost perfunctory response...it wasn't the first time someone's asked her that. It wasn't practiced...but it wasn't the first time she'd said it. She could see it in the precise pauses between words and phrases and she grinned. There was the fact that they both knew he was an Autobot, not her roommate technically. "Oh...so he hasn't asked you out yet?"

Katie choked on her bite of sandwich. For a brief moment Maggie worried that she'd be the one to kill poor Katie, not the Decepticons, but the worry passed when the vet drank deeply from her mug of coffee. She coughed a few times, face bright red, and wouldn't meet Maggie's eyes. "No, I'm sorry, it's not like that. We're just friends. Really good friends. Honest, I swear!"

What kind of friend would she be if she didn't tease her? Smirking, Maggie cut her own sandwich. "It's not only a river in Egypt, you know," she said as she brought her sandwich to her lips. A little tiny party of her felt bad that Katie wasn't enjoying her food because she kept choking. It really was quite delicious. "I don't care if it goes straight to his head, this is _fantastic_. Has he thought about opening a restaurant?"

Katie latched on to the new topic like a drowning man to a buoy. "I was going to surprise him. I'd seen a space for rent that I could buy and help him start one but with this whole fiasco...the money I set aside would need to go to repairs for the practice and shelter and rent…"

Just like that the conversation fell away and Maggie felt bad. "Look," she said, reaching over and grabbing Katie's hand. "I know it's far but if you ever need anything you can come to me in DC. It might not be what you want but if nothing works out, come live with me and Blue. We'd _love_ to have you."

"I appreciate it," Katie said with a wide smile. Her cheeks still burned but she was sincere. "I'm going to try and stick it out here. Not _try_, I'll do it. I have enough saved up." She toyed with a leaf of arugula, rolling it between her fingers. "I'm just so _mad_, you know?" she asked suddenly. "I don't mind so much that they destroyed everything. A house is a house, an office is an office. I lost _things_ but not something too important. I mean…" she bit her lip. "The house was gumma's - my grandmother's. I remember visiting it so it has _memories_ but it's...it's just _things_, you know? Liz…" her voice caught and she pinched and picked at her sandwich. "It's terrible what they did to her. Just terrible." To her horror her voice shook. "I know they're...I don't know, evil but to do that…"

Maggie swallowed a lump in her throat and reached over, putting a hand over Katie's. "I've learned to not question it," she said. "They're mean, they're evil, whatever. Evil people say evil things to make good people cry and doubt."

"Isn't that from a book?" Katie asked, frowning.

The other woman flapped her other hand. "I'll ignore for a moment my shock that you recognized it," she said dryly. "Regardless it's true."

Katie smiled weakly at her. "It's weird," she admitted. "Aside from feeling bad that I put Liz in danger, the most regret is that I had almost enough to help J with that restaurant. I was _so close_. Now I have to use it to find another place to live."

"Why not live at the base?" Maggie wanted to know, picking her sandwich up again. "If that's all you need? If you don't need an office, just work from here. They can't bring their animals here but you can make house calls, right?"

"That's mostly what I do," Katie admitted. "The rescue was a side thing and I needed a vet office to care for them. Most of the time I do just go straight to their herds because I don't want them stressed out from the travel to get to me. I just...I don't _need_ to live here. I'm fine. Really. And I don't want to impose."

The door opened and Lennox, Ironhide, and Epps walked in. Seeing them, they fell silent. "Is that coffee?" Lennox asked tiredly, spying Katie's carafe.

Katie smiled and poured them each a mug. "Jazz made it."

They groaned obscenely as they drank it down. Across the cafeteria, in the kitchen, Katie saw Jazz ask, "_More coffee?"_ She nodded and his head disappeared. A moment her watch buzzed and she looked down at it. '_More sandwiches?'_

"Hey, J wants to know if you want some breakfast sandwiches?" Katie said, looking up at Lennox and Epps.

"_Yes_," Lennox said with feeling.

Epps laughed. "Food made by someone that can't taste or smell? Nah, I'll pass." He said at the same time.

"I'll have his," Lennox said immediately. Laughing, Katie texted Jazz the orders. A minute later, Jazz came out, holding a tray of plates in one hand and another carafe of coffee in the other.

"Hey boogaboo," Jazz said, putting the plates down in front of Lennox and Epps and the full carafe down at the center of the table.

Katie smirked at him. "Hey bumperbutt."

Lennox's brows went straight up toward his hairline. "Kinky," Epps said.

"I know, right?" Maggie asked, lips twisting. Immediately Katie turned bright red and took a big bite of her sandwich. "Wow, you can sure fit a lot in your mouth."

Jazz cackled as he took the empty carafe and walked away. "You have no idea," he called over his shoulder and Katie actually started choking. Taking pity on her, Maggie slapped her back.

Looking at them, Ironhide shook his head. "That's gross," he commented to no one in particular.

"You have to believe in true love," Epps said, cutting his sandwich. "Ooh, there's an egg here."

Lennox moaned lewdly when he bit into his sandwich, egg yolk running down his chin. "That looks all kind of wrong there," Epps told him flatly.

"Yuu haff nuu idee," Lennox said with his mouth full. He swiped at the yolk with the back of his hand until Katie wiped his chin for him. "_Please_ don't let him stop cooking."

Maggie glanced at Katie out of the corner of her eye. "_Well_, Katie had been saving up to get him a restaurant."

Surprised, Lennox looked at Katie who shushed Maggie. "It was supposed to be a surprise," she hissed. "I had saved up a lot and almost had enough to get him a lease at a nice place with enough of a budget for him to decorate the way he wants. But I'll have to put it back a bit after this whole fiasco."

"What's stopping you?" Epps asked, brow furrowing. "Is it your practice?"

Katie shook her head. "I need to use those funds with my emergency funds to pay for rent. Jazz and I had backed up my information from my records at my practice so all I have to do is just make ranch calls which is what I normally do most of the time anyway."

"Rent for what, an apartment?" Lennox asked between bites. "Look. Just stay here. Everyone would feel better knowing we can keep you safe here. If you only make house calls that's fine because we can't support any livestock and it would just be a security risk." He groaned as he took a bite. "Dude. I'll invest in that restaurant. He'd make a _fortune_."

The vet pursed her lips. "I don't know if he'd want it," she said at last.

Lennox smiled at her. "If you want it to be just from you, that's fine. I'm just saying that I at least am here for you."

Katie returned the smile. "I didn't mean to make you think that. I'm just...unsure. I don't even know if he'd want to."

"Dude," Maggie said, finishing her sandwich. "You know. You just don't want to admit it. You're scared to think about it." She smiled to take the sting from her words. "He'll love it. He loves to cook." Her eyes sparkled and she smirked mischievously at the the other woman. "Maybe you could go into the business with him. That'd be cute."

She made a face at Maggie. "Stop that," Katie said, rolling her eyes. "We're just friends. Up until my house burned down, we were sort of roommates."

"That you were thinking about buying a restaurant for," Epps pointed out, taking a hesitant bite. "Oh God, I'd invest in this restaurant too. Sweet Mary mother of Jesus."

Katie laughed. "He loves it. But don't praise him too much or it'll go straight to his head."

Epps groaned. "Let it."

"Speak of the devil," Ironhide rumbled as Jazz emerged from the kitchen.

"How're the sandwiches guys?" He asked, sliding into a place beside Katie.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "As if you need to ask." She stood. "Thanks, Jazz, but I need to get going. So sorry I couldn't stay longer."

The Autobot chuckled. "It's quite all right. I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"Ha!" she called over her shoulder. "Understatement of my month!"

"They were saying that you should open a restaurant," Ironhide rumbled, watching Lennox lick his fingers clean. "That is disgusting, William."

Lennox snorted. "If you had taste buds or nostrils to smell with you'd understand." Just to spite his guardian he licked his fingers again and groaned.

"Disgusting," Ironhide repeated.

"Lewd," Epps insisted.

Jazz laughed. "I've considered it," he admitted. "I certainly had enough time to do it while Katie was out on her runs. Somehow it just didn't seem appropriate, you know?"

"It's bizarre," Ironhide agreed. "What's your fascination with it?"

Epps groaned, mopping up the yolk with a piece of bread. "Who cares, he's _great_ at it."

"He has a green thumb too," Katie murmured. "He used to grow most of his ingredients in the garden out back." Her phone rang and glancing at her watch, frowned at the number. "Excuse me."

They watched as she literally sprinted for the door. It swung shut as she answered. "Did anyone else find that weird?" Epps asked, reaching across the table for the food left on Katie's plate.

Absently, Jazz slapped his hand away. "It happens every once in a while," he said, frowning at the door. Through the windows they could see Katie pacing around outside. "She gets a call that she doesn't let me hear. Once she had me pull over on the side of the road and she jumped over the guardrail."

"What is it? Who is it?" Lennox asked, frowning deeply.

Jazz shrugged. "She won't tell me and I don't want to pry." He paused then looked around. "Have you guys seen a cat, by chance?"

The two men recoiled and Ironhide's face closed off. "_Cat_?" He demanded.

"He won't piss on you, don't worry," Jazz said, waving his hand dismissively. "I don't think Katie left him in the room but she might have and I have to feed him. Or she does before we go anywhere." He looked up as the door slammed open. "Are you okay, pudding pop?"

Katie glanced at them, her face stormy. "Yes," she said shortly. "I'm going to feed Snowy." She made a move to go to the kitchen but Jazz grabbed her wrist.

"Just go to the room, I'll bring his food over. He's probably going crazy right now." Absently and perhaps looking a little relieved, she spun and walked quickly out the door.

Trading glances with the men and Ironhide, Jazz stood. "Yeah, go take care of that, man," Epps said quietly. "Thanks for the sandwiches. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help."

Jazz smiled. "Thanks," he said just as quietly. "I appreciate it." Gathering the plates, he walked back into the kitchen, emerging a moment later with two small bowls cupped in his hands.

Standing, Lennox grabbed the carafe. "This is going to my office. I'm claiming it." Twisting the cap shut, he ran as Epps gave chase.

Left behind, Ironhide sighed and shook his head. "Humans."

Snowy was curled up on Katie's belly when he entered the room, covering most of her torso with his noble bulk. He twisted to look at Jazz and seemed to consider whether he wanted to leave Katie's lazy pets for the food in the holoform's hands. When Katie nudged him gently he stretched and climbed off her to eat.

"What's wrong," Jazz asked quietly, moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

Katie sighed. "Nothing," she said, still staring at the ceiling. "Just...my father's going to be at dinner tonight. We don't have the best relationship and I'm not looking forward to it." Her head lolled to the side toward him. "I don't really want to talk about it, Jazz."

He rested a hand on her wrist. "You don't have to if you don't want to," he assured her. "But if you do, I'm here."

She smiled weakly at him. "You always are," she murmured, eyes bright and over-full. The eye closest to the mattress let loose a tear that streaked down her face.

"Always and forever, sugar muffin." he said with a wink. As he had hoped, she laughed.

"Sap."

* * *

Jazz took Katie to pick up her truck and followed her to her errands. After a moment of hesitation they stopped for lunch then went to the grocery store. Truck loaded with groceries meticulously approved by Jazz, they returned briefly to the base to restock the kitchens. The chefs there weren't amused that their spaces were invaded so thoroughly by Jazz but acquiesced and gave him a few shelves in her refrigerators. Katie thanked them profusely when Jazz went back to get the second load.

After a few tries and a few questions, Katie found Lennox's office. "Can I borrow a few minutes of your time?"

He smiled warmly at her. "Give me a minute to finish this paperwork and then we can talk okay?"

"Sure," she sat in the offered chair, picking at her pants. Nervously she bit her lip.

Lennox leaned over the desk and smiled at her. "Now, what can I do for you?"

She hesitated, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth. "My client paid me a bonus today. I have enough to get his restaurant," she blurted. "I just need to know what I would need to do if I wanted to stay on base, if it's still an option."

Risking a glance up, she saw Lennox's grin light up his face. "That's great!" He dug around his desk for a small folder that he picked up and waved at her. "This is actually your paperwork. You need to sign a few NDAs, mostly to have it on paper and official and all that. After you sign we can go about getting you your own room and space."

Katie blinked. "It's that easy?"

"On your end," Lennox said with a laugh. "I'll talk to logistics about getting you some clothes and furniture, we'll find a place for you to live on base." Katie took the folder from him and fingered through the pages. "You just worry about your practice and getting the lease on that place."

Her lips pursed. "I can't believe it's as easy as that."

Lennox laughed again. "It's not, really, we'll be there to bother you for signatures and stuff but there isn't much we can do since you've already had contact with Jazz for so long. On the Autobots' end you're all set and they've strong-armed the government into accepting it for the most part. Now it's just…" he shrugged.

"Paperwork."

"Paperwork," he agreed. "Sign those forms and get them back to me, take your time to look over them, make sure I see them and where you put them on this mess so I don't lose them."

"I'm going out to dinner with a few family friends tonight so I'll be back late," she said apologetically. "I'll get it signed now if you don't mind me reading over them first."

Lennox grinned. "By all means, take your time." He gestured to his pile. "I'll get back to sorting out this mess and you do you."

If he was surprised at the speed with which she signed the paperwork he gave no indication, accepting the folder back with a smile. "Nothing I haven't signed or written before," she explained with a wry smile even though he didn't say anything. "Is that really it?"

"It seems weird, right?" Lennox said with a chuckle. "No, I'll take care of the rest of it. We can provide you with some clothes, they'll be army issue if you don't mind. There aren't many humans at this particular base but a bunch of us can pitch in normal clothes too if you need any. Come in," he called when someone knocked on the door.

Jazz poked his head in. "Ah, there you are," he said to Katie. "Am I interrupting something?"

"We're just talking about me living here," Katie said lightly and he narrowed his eyes. To Lennox, she said, "I have some things in storage, not much but it'll do fine. And I have money saved up. We'll be fine." She glanced at her watch. "I have an appointment I need to go to so I'll see you later, Will."

"You have my number," the captain replied. "If you need anything just tell me." He winked and grabbed his phone while they walked out.

It was a message from Epps who he had texted while Katie was signing her forms. '_HELL YEAH. I'm in'_. Shaking his head, he composed a message to Katie.

* * *

Jazz saw Katie glance at her wrist where it was synced with her phone and grin. Curiosity ate at him but he forced himself to respect her privacy and not peek, especially when she quickly closed the message and squinted up at him.

But slag did he want to know.

"You about ready to be my assistant for the day?" Katie teased, shading her eyes to squint up at his transformed form.

"Eh," he said, shrugging. He slipped smoothly into his Pontiac form. "I'm actually not going with you to the appointment. Ratchet will."

Her brows snapped together. "Excuse me?"

"They wanted another guard on you, just in case." Jazz explained with a smirk. "So he'll be your assistant, not me."

She scowled. "Yeah. A _chartreuse_ Hummer would be great."

"Better than a Pontiac Solstice," Jazz pointed out. "They got rid of his decals on the side and toned down his paint job a bit so it'd be easier. I'll meet you later, but he'll drive you over. Or if you insist on being stubborn you can drive down separately."

Katie glared at him. "And what are you doing?" she demanded, knowing that she was being unfair. Both knew that Ratchet had rubbed her the wrong way the last time they had met.

"I have a meeting with Prime," he said, wiggling his front wheels in a car shrug. His holoform emerged from the front seat and walked over. "But it probably won't be long. I'll meet you at the farm and we can make a stupid looking caravan driving around to the rest of your appointments." Because they both knew that there was no way that Katie would ride in Ratchet's cab short of having her truck blown up.

Groaning, Katie hugged Jazz. "Fine. I'll see you later, bubble butt."

Jazz winked at her as she pulled away. "I'm already counting the seconds, peaches n' cream."

Laughing, Katie walked toward her truck where Ratchet waited. "Has Jazz informed you that I will be taking you to your appointment?"

"No, you will be _accompanying_ me. Like hell you're driving me."

He frowned, or at least she thought he did. "It doesn't make sense for _both_ of us to drive," he said. A sensible point but Katie was nothing if not stubborn.

"Nope, I'm driving myself, you can follow or not as you like," she said, climbing into her truck. Her wrist buzzed as she started the car, _INCOMING CALL: RATCHET_ scrolling across the screen. She answered and put it on speaker.

"_This really is inefficient,"_ he said disapprovingly as she put her truck into drive.

Katie barked a laugh. "Look, short of shooting my truck, you're not stopping me. Like _hell_ I'm riding with you. I don't have time to argue, I have places to be and appointments to make."

Over the phone, clear as day, Ratchet sighed. "_Why are you so difficult?"_

"I'm not being difficult, you are," she said glibly. "Look, I have to make another call so shush." Feeling for her phone, she hung up on him before he could respond. Scrolling through her contacts, she found the number she was looking for and hit _CALL_.

* * *

"Ramone!" Jazz laughed as he followed the sounds of an argument at the top of a human's lungs.

The rancher, a man Jazz was familiar with, grinned from where he leaned against the fence. "Hey, J!" he called. "Katie told me you'd be by later. Nice to see ya."

Jazz shook the offered hand with a grin. "Hey, Archie," he greeted. "I see they're getting along well."

"Them? Ha!" Archie laughed. "Like an old married couple, always squabbling and nitpicking at each other. Where'd she find him?"

Leaning on the railing beside the rancher, Jazz looked for his friend. "_You're not a farrier!_" He followed the sounds of the exasperated yell and watched as Katie, splattered in mud, moved in to the downed bull calf.

"Just because _you_ can't doesn't mean _I_ can't," came Ratchet's insistent voice and Jazz found the Autobot in an entirely other paddock, stroking a horse's nose. "He needs his hooves trimmed!"

Archie elbowed Jazz lightly in the arm. "My farrier's coming Monday," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Hey, man!" one of the hands restraining the bull called with a laugh. "Don't irritate the woman with the ball cutters!"

Done, Katie stepped back and wiped her cheek on her sleeve.

"I'm not afraid of her," Ratchet sniffed, inspecting the horses. "She merely feels threatened by my presence because I am more skilled and have more experience in the medical profession than she does."

The field hands all _OOOOOOH_ed as Katie whirled, fury in her eyes. Laughing good-naturedly they brought out the next bull. "What I wouldn't give to castrate you with the damn bulls!" she roared. Archie and Jazz giggled from their place at the fence, stuffing their fists in their mouths to keep from alerting their entertainment. "You're _useless_ here. _Why_ did I bring you along?"

Leaning over, Jazz nudged Archie with an elbow. "Hey, can I get some of those testicles?"

Chuckling, Archie waved his hand. "Sure. Take 'em all. If you're brave enough to eat them they're all yours."

"I always wanted to try cooking them," Jazz confided in him, watching Ratchet completely ignore Katie in favor of exploring the horses' paddock. "And judging by the way Katie's grinding her teeth she'll enjoy pretending they're his."

Archie hooted in laughter, drawing Katie's attention. She scowled at Jazz and pointed her scalpel at him, backing away from the calf. "I hate you so much right now," she called over.

"Archie's giving me the testicles," Jazz called back over. "I'll cook them up and you can pretend they're his."

Katie barked a laugh as the calf was released and the next one was brought in. "Two more now, Dr. Keynes," one of the hands called over and she nodded.

"Good, we're making great time." She answered, taking a deep breath.

"Hey," Archie said suddenly, leaning close to Jazz. "I heard 'bout her place. They say her assistant was beaten to death?"

Jazz sighed, hanging his head. "Yeah," he murmured quietly. "It was bad. They torched the place. House and practice both. All the animals she had, all the rescues, went down with everything."

The rancher sucked on his teeth, shaking his head. "That's terrible, terrible luck there." Jazz nodded in agreement. "Look, is there anything I can do to help? I don't got much but I'd like to do something to help, you know?"

Smiling, Jazz clapped him on his shoulder. "We'll do fine. We're still alive and Katie and I have enough saved up that it isn't too much of a hardship. We appreciate it though." Archie didn't look convinced. "We really appreciate your loyalty and your generosity," Jazz told him quietly. "It means a lot to us. But we'll manage."

Archie didn't look convinced. "If you're sure…"

"Really," Jazz insisted as Katie finished with the last bull and cleaned her instruments. "We'll manage just fine."

The rancher grunted. "Well, if you need anything, you just let me know, you hear?"

Jazz smiled. "Thanks. I'll let Katie know too. It means a lot to hear that."

"Let me know what?" the woman asked, handing her kit to Jazz so she could duck between the slats of the fence.

Archie slung an arm around her shoulder. "That if you need anything, you tell me. I heard about what happened to your house and I want to help however I can."

"Everyone's heard," Katie told him dryly. Then she smiled to take the sting from her words. "But nonetheless I appreciate it. Thanks, Archie." Glancing back at the man in the horse paddock, she edged toward her truck. "Let's just leave him there. See if he notices."

Laughing, Jazz and Archie followed her to her truck, watching as she rolled her coat up and tossed it into the bed and stowed her bag in the backseat. "Where to next?" Jazz asked, heading to his car.

"Follow me," Katie told him, accepting her payment from Archie. "Thanks, Arch," she told him. "You have my number, just call if you need anything." The rancher waved as she climbed into the cab.

As they were driving down the driveway, slowly for the sake of Jazz's suspension, her watch buzzed. It was a text from Ratchet. A moment later, Jazz called and patched Ratchet through.

"_That was juvenile,"_ he said with a sniff. Glancing in the rear-view mirror she could see the green Hummer bouncing along the driveway behind her, going a little too fast so he could catch up.

Katie sniffed and drove around Jazz as he came to the edge of the driveway. "Serves you right." Jazz fell in behind her, leaving a grumbling Ratchet to bring up the rear.

"_So are we up for another appointment?"_ Jazz asked. "_Your calendar says you have one."_

"Oh," Katie blinked. "Mr. Hasegawa? No, he cancelled just before I got to Archie's. Guess I didn't change that one. No, I have a surprise for you."

"_Is it that building we stopped by earlier?"_ Ratchet cut in.

Katie ground her teeth. "You. Hush. I _told_ you it was a surprise." She threw her truck into park and got out, waiting for Jazz to do the same and activate his holoform. When he approached, she gave him a thick envelope. "Here's your lease. I bought it for a year and Lennox and Epps texted me that they'd come down and help us move in and arrange everything the way you want." She pulled out a key from her pocket and opened the door, leading the shocked holoform inside.

"What's this?" Jazz asked, looking down at Katie.

Katie smirked, wrapping an arm around his waist. "Well, it's whatever you want it to be but we all thought you'd like to open a restaurant or something?"

"A restaurant?" Jazz asked faintly as Ratchet entered.

The medic sniffed, crossing his arms across his chest. "You'd never get the proper permits for it."

"If Lennox and Epps support it I don't see why he won't," Katie argued. "If you want I can help work when I'm not on call which, now that I don't have much of," she told Jazz. "They also say they'll invest a modest amount if you feed them when they help you."

Jazz laughed and swept her into a hug. "You got me a restaurant?"

"Leased," Katie corrected. "I leased you one for a year. Maggie also thinks it's also a good idea."

Still laughing, he swung her around in the air, ignoring how she flailed in alarm. "I'm so happy I could kiss you."

"Please don't," Katie said dryly. "I might puke in your mouth."

* * *

"Is that my little Katie Cat?" Chief asked as she climbed out of her truck.

Laughing, she pulled the plates of dessert Jazz had baked out of the back of her truck and walked up the porch. "I brought some beers if you want, they're in the truck."

"Nah," Chief said, kissing her cheek warmly. "I got the good stuff in here."

She made a face. "So long as it's not Coors or Miller I'm good."

"If that's what your father brought then I would be seriously disappointed in him," Chief told her gravely though his eyes sparkled with mischief. He slapped her shoulder and peeled back the corner of the foil covering her platter. "What's this?"

"J - my roommate, that is - made it. He says it's called a 'peanut butter muchie'. It's layers of cake, marshmallow, and chocolate krispies." Katie explained. "He offered to make some rocky mountain oysters but I wasn't sure how you'd take eating it so we left them behind."

Chief's brows rose. "Wow. Dare I ask where you got those?"

Katie smirked as she followed him inside. "They're fresh, that's all I'll say."

"Here, you can just put that in the kitchen. I don't have any dessert so it's perfect." Chief said, gesturing toward the room in question. "Look who just showed up," he called, leading her into the living room.

"Well it's about time," the woman on the couch said, smirking. Katie forgot how much she annoyed her even just hearing her voice. "I was starving and Chief wouldn't let us eat."

The man turned and Katie stared at her father, who she hadn't seen in person since she left for college. He looked older, with steel-grey hair and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Creases were permanently etched across his forehead, giving him the appearance of always frowning. "Should I be calling you 'doctor' now?" he asked in greeting, back stiff and perfectly straight.

"Considering I'm certified as a veterinarian in the state of California and have a doctorate's degree in veterinary medicine, I'd say that's a 'yes, you should call me doctor'." Katie informed him just as stiffly.

Chief frowned deeply. "Now here's this, you two, you better get along."

Katie bent to kiss his cheek. "I'll try, Chief," I promised. "I'm starving, what've you got to eat?"

"Chief made something, right? Or was it frozen?" the woman on the couch asked. "I bet it was frozen."

This time it was Chief that scowled at her. "I'm old, not incapable, Adalie" he informed her with all the dignity of his 90 years.

"So take out, then," Adalie said and giggled at her own joke.

"I don't know why I bother," Chief muttered under his breath to Katie as he tugged her into the kitchen. "I try to be nice to her and she just insults me."

Katie snorted, pulling out the boxes of food. It _was_ take out food and leftovers but even though her palate was "civilized" by Jazz, Katie was glad to be there for the company (of Chief) more than the food. "That's the way she is, Chief," she said grimly, popping the lids and inhaling the smells. "But this _does_ smell good. She doesn't mean any harm, that's just the way she is."

The man grunted and at his gesture she brought down plates, cups, and utensils. "If you got good beer in your truck you may as well bring it in. He got Coors and Corona."

"I get us some Guinness," Katie told him, heading for the door. "Be right back."

"Atta girl," he called after her.

When she returned with a six pack, she left all but two on the porch and walked in. "So it _was_ take out," Adalie was saying when she entered. "You're getting a bit old, Chief. Maybe you should go somewhere else."

"Blunt," Katie informed her, putting her beers on the counter. "And rude. You're a guest here."

"He's almost 90!" Adalie reminded her. "He shouldn't be living alone."

Opening the beers briskly, Katie snorted. "He can do what he wants. And if you knew anything you'd know that he really doesn't live alone, you just think he is so you can kick him out and steal his house." Katie turned to Chief. "Do you want a glass or straight from the bottle?"

"Straight," Chief grunted, taking it from her hands.

Katie patted his shoulder. "Go sit, I'll make your plate."

"Can he even eat this stuff?" Adalie asked, lips wrinkling. "He'll probably die from all the grease."

"He can and he does but only on special occasions," Katie snapped. "Stop pretending like you care."

"Katheryne," her father snapped. "That is no way to speak to Adalie."

Katie narrowed her eyes at him. "You stand up for her but not your own father." She pointed out, arranging Chief's plate meticulously. "And I get in trouble for defending him from her rudeness."

"It's what's best for him," Adalie insisted. "Katie, don't you see? He shouldn't be eating this crap, he shouldn't be living alone!"

Katie groaned. "Jesus, woman, would you just _shut up_?" She demanded. "I've had a long day cutting off bull balls and I don't want to be spending it catering to _you_."

"Katheryne Keynes, how dare you," her father fumed, clenching his plate so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Young lady you are being wildly inappropriate."

Chief sighed deeply as Katie placed his plate in front of him. "I'm sorry, Katie Cat," he murmured as she sat beside him.

"She's just being a bitch," Katie told him. "I deal with them a lot at work. And sometimes my clients are rude too."

He laughed into his drink. "Do _you_ think I'm unhealthy?"

She waved it away. "The way I see it, you're old enough that you may as well do whatever you want. That includes eating and drinking what you want. Not to mention you're really not unhealthy."

"Katheryne," her father snapped, storming into the dining room. "Dad, you really shouldn't encourage her. Adalie is family now."

"If she's family, then she shouldn't be treating Chief like that," Katie drawled.

Chief slapped the table hard. "All of you shut up!" he snapped. "I'm sick of your squabbling. You sit down and enjoy dinner like a family should." His son scowled down at him before submitting and sliding into a chair. Adalie joined him a moment later with a disdainful sniff. Turning back to Katie, he took a sip of his beer. "Now, how are you doing? I've heard all about that fire. Are you doing all right? Where are you staying?"

"I'm staying with friends," Katie assured him, patting his hand. "But don't worry, I'm fine. I'm entirely unhurt. I can't say the same thing about Liz or the animals, but everything's fine."

"Your name was plastered all over the airwaves," her father snapped abruptly. "What were you _thinking_? My security may be revoked!"

Chief ignored him and squeezed Katie's hand. "Well I still have some of your clothes from college if you need them and you and J are more than welcome to stay here if you need to."

"Thanks, Chief," Katie said sincerely, squeezing his hand. "But we're fine. I might take some of those clothes before I leave, though."

"Will they fit? I bet you've gained some weight since you've stayed here." Adalie said while Katie's father fumed.

Chief and Katie ignored them. "They catch 'em though?"

"There's still an ongoing investigation," Katie said. "But so far there hasn't been any more livestock mutilations so they're not sure if they're classifying it as a separate case."

Her father slammed his fork down so hard that Chief's beer rattled and nearly fell over. "Listen here. Your actions are seriously jeopardizing my career." he snapped. "Deaf people can't be doctors, _especially_ if they're women. My biggest mistake was letting your mother raise you to be this...this…" He struggled for words while Katie's fists clenched.

"This what, independent? Masculine?" she demanded. "All I've heard from you is me, me, me. 'You're ruining my career as the biggest ass sucker in the nation, Katheryne', 'I might not get my promotion because you got your veterinary license, what were you thinking, Katheryne.'" She got to her feet. "My assistant and student was brutally murdered and everything was burned down. The first thing you said when you called me was that my name all over the news might jeopardize your career."

"_What_?" Chief demanded. "Aldrin!"

Katie wasn't finished. "Well I'm deaf, big deal," she continued. "If you had so much of a problem with it, you wouldn't have left me at home with Mother, now would you? You wouldn't have stayed married to her when you _knew_ what she did. Instead you just sent me off to live with Gumma."

"You were just a child, I hardly expect you to understand," Aldrin hissed. "Now conduct yourself as befitting a young lady like you."

With a heavy sigh, Chief leaned back in his chair and Katie felt bad for ruining the dinner. "I'm not a lady, I'm a vet. I cut off balls for a living and shove my hand up animals' asses or in rare instances up their vaginas. I drive a truck and don't wear dresses and I burp and swear. I drink beer and liquor and sing lewd songs when I'm drunk." Katie could hear Chief chuckle despite himself. "I'm deaf, I sign, I have implants. Big deal. I hear you just fine with them. I'm successful at what I do and make good money working on ranches with their livestock. Up until recently I had a successful animal rescue and a few days out of the week I work at the community college as an adjunct professor. I'd say that alone should be something a father would be proud of."

"I've worked hard to get where I am in my career," Aldrin hissed. "And seemingly all you do is try to ruin it. I don't expect you to understand it."

Adalie sighed. "Really, Katheryne, you really don't understand it," she said, reaching over to Katie's hand. She pulled it away, out of her reach. "Your father is really a great man. I think you're just irrationally jealous. His career is great and all he's been doing is rising up. This promotion coming up is the big one and all you seem to be doing is ruining it for him. How selfish can you be?"

With a groan, Katie grabbed her ears. "Do you guys _hear_ yourselves?" She turned to Chief. "I'm not going to ask you to get involved in this but I just can't stay here. I'll come by and visit later, I promise."

"Katie Cat," Chief groaned. "No, don't go."

"I'll visit tomorrow and I'll bring J. He'd love to meet you." Katie bent to kiss his cheek. "You haven't seen Aldrin in a while either. You may as well enjoy his company. If it's possible. I'll call you tomorrow."

Sighing, Chief stood and hugged her. "Thanks for coming, Katie Cat," he murmured.

"I'll leave the rest of the Guinness on the porch," Katie whispered in his ear. "I think you'll need it."

Chief laughed. "I'm so sorry that Aldrin…"

Katie patted his arm. "It's okay, Chief. Really. We've just never got along." She bent to kiss his cheek again. "I'll bring J by tomorrow and we'll get lunch together, how's that? We can go into town or we can bring food in, your choice."

"You make an old man happy," Chief said as she walked down the stairs.

"Nonsense," she called back. "You're not old. You're only, what, thirty?"

Chief cackled as she climbed into the cab.

* * *

"Didn't go well?" Jazz asked when she walked into the kitchen.

She sighed and grabbed a rag. "It never does when Aldrin and Adalie are involved," she told him. "Chief and I are great but I have no idea where Aldrin got all these...I don't know, bizarre ideas. He just wants me to be something I'm not and I can't do it. I _had_ to leave or I'd be arrested for murder. But I promised Chief that you and I would come by for lunch."

Gently, Jazz put a hand on her shoulder. "What kind of ideas?"

"He wants me to be a proper lady. He doesn't want me to be deaf." She threw the rag on the ground in frustration. "I'm 32, I haven't seen him since I was 18. For almost _half my life_. And the first thing he tells me is that...that I'm not good enough. I'm a _vet_, I had a successful practice. All he sees is a deaf woman without a husband."

Jazz snorted. "Do you think any human man could keep up with you?" he wanted to know. "You're too...fantastic for them, sugar plum." He squeezed her shoulder gently, tugging her against his side. "That's why you're better off with us. We won't ask you to change. You know, unless you smell bad of course. Like that time that horse shat all over you."

As he had hoped, Katie laughed weakly. "All he wanted to talk about was how my 'life choices'," here she made sarcastic quotation marks with her fingers, "are affecting his career. As if what I do short of getting thrown in jail affects anything!" She whirled to face Jazz, eyes too-bright with unshed tears of frustration. "He sent me away, did you know? Sent me to live with Gumma on the vineyard because I was 'slandering my mother's name' and being 'heinously unladylike' and because I was 'getting in the way of further advancement, you understand, right, Katheryne'?" The air quotations were back and Katie whirled around, slamming a fist into a stainless steel countertop. "And Adalie has the _nerve_ to insinuate that all I do is think of myself. _Who does that?_"

The last bit was shrieked and Jazz winced at the sound. Gently he tugged her back, holding her tightly against his chest and resting his chin on her head. "Look, Katie," he told her gently. "Your family sucks. But you have to stop trying to please them. I know you're not," he said quickly when she tensed. "But who cares what he thinks? Obviously he hasn't had a huge role in your life. Maybe it's time for you to just move on, ignore him. Pay attention to the people that mean the most to you, that have impacted your life in a positive way. Like this Chief, or your Gumma who willed you the vineyard. Forget about these dickwads."

"It's hard to forget," Katie sniffed, tucking her head against his chest. "It hurts. I've done so much and suddenly it all means nothing?"

"It means nothing to the people that shouldn't matter," Jazz said sagely. "So many of the local ranchers here _love_ you. Archie offered you a place to stay, did you know? And clothes if you needed since he heard your house burned down. I've gotten a few calls, too, from people looking for the shelter to offer their condolences and support for you. There's a fund _for you_ and people willing and _wanting_ to volunteer to help you rebuild your house."

Katie leaned back and looked up at him. He wiped a tear from her face. "What?"

The Autobot chuckled. "Even Liz's family are donating in memory of her. They _started_ it. They wanted to build a whole shelter and decided to include your house too. Your clients can't donate too much but they say that they'll come down and volunteer their _time_ to do the building. And once I open this business all that money's going to go to you to rebuild. What use have I for money?" He kissed her forehead in a startling human gesture. "The animals love you. Where would Snowy be without you? And Applejack, that Clydesdale over the hill would've been put down if it weren't for you. You matter to _them_. And to _me_." He pulled her chin up when she looked away, forcing her to meet his Autobot-blue eyes. "I wouldn't have this place if it wasn't for you." he pointed out. "And _I_ don't care if a horse shat all over you or if ten minutes ago you had your hands up a cow's birth canal. I'll still drive you home when you're hammered and sing along when you start belting out lewd songs. I'll still help you if you ever need it with your practice. Sometimes family _isn't_ the people that share your genetics."

Pulling her head away, she tucked it back against his chest and he let her. After a few minutes of silent crying, she stepped back and wiped her eyes. "The night's still young," she said. "Let's grab some dinner and get this place cleaned up, hm?"

Smiling, Jazz nudged her shoulder with his fist. "Atta girl."

* * *

**A few quick notes:**

**Gumma and Chief are named for my ex's grandparents. I've only met one set but they're fantastic and I love them dearly. Chief is pretty old but spry for his age like my own grandparents. You'd never know they are in their 80's, really!**

**I based Katie's and Jazz's relationship especially in this chapter like the relationship I have with some of my friends. We call each other ridiculous pet names as a joke (because we don't really call our s/o's anything like "Muffin" and "Kookie Bear") and are generally silly like that. Sometimes people think we're dating and then it gets awkward but that's just how our relationship is.**

**Thanks for reading and bearing with me! I really appreciate it. I'd also love it if you reviewed because the more I'm aware that people actually read this the faster and more likely I am to update faster (hint hint).**

**Also, I'll be traveling to NJ next week. I can't guarantee I'll have a lot of time to work on this but I'm hoping that I will. I'll be bringing my laptop along just in case, though, so hopefully you'll see an update from me next week.**

**~DC**


	7. Moving

**Sorry for the huge delay, guys. Recently I got a job that requires me to move quickly back to NJ so I've been packing up everything down where I am now and getting ready to move. That's why this chapter is so short, I've been caught up in moving prep. **

**Cheers!**

**~DC**

* * *

"I can't believe you drive a truck like this," Lennox huffed as he and Katie hefted the table into the bed. Jazz and Ironhide caught it and arranged it to Jazz's satisfaction before reaching for the next table.

Wiping sweat from her brow with her arm, Katie looked at him. "Huh?" Obligingly he repeated himself and tried not to feel weird when she stared at his lips. "Oh. _That's_ what you're surprised at? My _truck_? Not that J knew exactly what he wanted and where to get it?"

Dripping sweat, Epps groaned from where he leaned against the side. "She's got a point," he told the captain. "Have you been planning this?" He asked almost accusingly.

"Not really," Jazz said with a smirk. "But I've been considering getting a restaurant. Sweetiepie Facecake over there just saved me the leasing step and kind of decided for me."

Shading her eyes, the woman in question frowned up at her guardian. "_What_ did you just call me?"

Still smirking, Jazz hopped down from the bed, making the truck bounce a little on its tires. "Sweetiepie Facecake."

Katie groaned and shoved at his shoulder. "That's a bad one even for you." She turned to Ironhide who was strapping down the tables. "You almost done?"

"Why, you in a rush to be somewhere?" he grumbled before he too hopped off the bed and closed the tailgate.

"No, I just don't want your fat ass breaking my truck," Katie shot back.

Ironhide grunted and scowled at her. "We all packed up?" Jazz asked, clapping his hands briskly. "There's still a lot of work to be done today."

"You _had_ to volunteer us," Epps groaned to Lennox, flapping his sweaty shirt against his chest to try and cool off. "You're lucky I love you."

Lennox slapped his chest with the back of his hand. "You volunteered _yourself_, remember?" He swung an arm around his shoulders. "Besides. Think of all the food Jazz'll make us when this is all over."

"There won't be _any_ food for you if we don't get this all moved and cleaned by the end of the day!" Jazz called from where he parked a few cars down. "Come on! Let's go!"

Rolling her eyes, Katie climbed into her truck and started the engine. She was pulling out of her stall when someone rapped hard on the window. Rolling it down she raised a brow at Epps. "What?"

"Can I ride with you, sugar bun?" he teased and rolling her eyes again she unlocked the door.

"Get in, stupid," she teased back.

* * *

"Why does _Katie_ get food but _we_ don't?" Epps whined as he and Lennox shuffled into the dining room, the box of lamps and chandeliers held between them.

Jazz huffed a laugh. "Whoever you got your information from is wrong," he joked. "I hope it wasn't your own eyes because I'd say you're blind."

"If you worked as much as you complained then maybe we'd get done faster and be able to _eat_ faster," Katie commented from where she balanced on Jazz's shoulders, fixing the chandeliers to his exacting requirements. "This good, my jujube?"

Beneath her, Jazz laughed. "You would know," he teased, moving her to another hanging light. "Only look upon yourself in the mirror and match your own perfection."

Katie cackled as he handed her another shade. Biting his knuckle, Epps pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the two of them. "Sap," she teased affectionately, accepting the shade.

"Only for you," he insisted in a voice sounding more appropriate for a love ballad or a cheesy soap. "I intend to make this restaurant a shrine to you."

Frowning, Katie looked down at him. "What?"

"What are you going to name this place?" Lennox asked, unpacking the shades with care and setting them on tables beneath the lights they were to adorn. "I'm getting a tropical vibe."

Grinning, Jazz walked, with Katie still clinging to his shoulders and hair, to the front and picked up the ukulele resting on the dividing wall. He strummed it, badly out of tune, but began to play an upbeat song. Laughing, Katie clung to him with her legs over his shoulders and her hands gripping his head tightly as he sang and danced, sashaying around the room.

"_Pineapple princess, he calls me pineapple princess, all day as he plays his ukulele on the hill above the bay._" Katie squealed when he spun quickly, nearly tossing her off his shoulders. "_Pineapple princess, I love you, you're the sweetest girl I've seen. Someday we're gonna marry and you'll be my pineapple queen."_

Ironhide, walking in with a box in his arms, snorted as Epps began recording the whole exchange.

"_I saw a boy on Oahu isle, floating down the bay on a crocodile,"_ Katie bawled, as off-tune as the ukulele. They couldn't tell if it was on purpose or not. "_Floating down the bay on a crocodile. He waved at me and he swam ashore and I knew he'd be mine forevermore." _

Hearing the kitchen door open again, Lennox turned in time to see the holoform Optimus Prime used enter the dining room. Waving quickly, he gestured to the dancing and singing duo. The Prime nodded and edged around toward Lennox, kneeling to help the captain unload his box.

"I asked him what he'd call the place," he whispered.

The other's brows rose. "So he started singing?"

Epps chuckled and edged over as they entered another verse together. "Hush, man, this is _gold_!"

"_He sings his song from banana trees, he even sings to me on his water skis. We went skin diving and beneath the blue he sang and played his ukulele too."_

"He really seems happy," Optimus commented, helping Lennox to attach the frosted glass bowl that served as the shades. "Is that an octopus?"

Lennox chuckled. "There's a sting ray over there," he said, nodding with his head to the table next to them. "I can't figure out what he's calling it just yet."

"_We'll settle down in a bamboo hut and he will be my own little coconut,"_ Katie sang, hanging on tightly as Jazz jumped and danced and contorted while continuing to play.

"_And we'll be beach-combing royalty on a wiki-wiki-wacky Waikiki,"_ they finished together.

Optimus chuckled quietly. "I haven't seen him like this in a long time."

"Hush!" Epps insisted, a little too loudly.

Jazz turned so quickly that Katie fell over backwards, hanging upside-down from his shoulders. "Heya, boss!" Jazz called. "Here, princess," he said to Katie, offering a bent arm. Grabbing it, she braced herself as she released the hold her legs had on his shoulders. "What brings you here?"

"I just came by to check on you," Optimus replied, running a cloth over the smudge marks Lennox put on the shade. "And to admire the place."

The former saboteur chuckled. "Yeah, it's not much but it's gettin' there, thanks to these guys."

"So you didn't really answer my question," Lennox said, stepping back to admire his work.

Jazz smirked. "Pineapple Princess, of course. I haven't decided if I want it to be a bar and grille or a cafe or what. I don't even know what I'm going to serve here."

"Grilled pineapple burgers?" Katie suggested.

"Hawaiian pizza?" Epps put in.

Jazz and Katie made identical faces of disgust. "Pineapple has no business on pizza," Katie sniffed.

"And I'm not going to cook anything my Pineapple Princess won't eat," Jazz said, posing as dramatic as any model from the cover of a romance novel. Katie rolled her eyes and elbowed his side.

Prime stared at him and Katie raised a brow at him. "Yes?"

Amused, the Autobot leader shook his holoform's head. "Nothing, it's just I haven't seen him so happy."

Smiling, Jazz put his arm around Katie's shoulder, tucking her against his side affectionately. "Animal therapy works wonders," he said with a laugh. "And the cooking and gardening helps too."

"Gardening?" Prime asked, looking shocked.

"He had a small garden behind my house," Katie explained, wiggling out of his hold to dig through the boxes. Pulling a knife out of her pocket, she began breaking the empty ones down. "Whoever attacked my house also burned it down or trampled it. He had quite the green thumb."

It took Prime a moment to understand the idiom. He glanced at Katie before turning to Jazz who shifted, seemingly embarrassed. He put the ukulele down and returned to unpacking the boxes that Katie hadn't broken down yet. "It gave me time to think and something to do with my hands," he explained. "In either form." he added. "I could work with the big trees without my holoform which was very nice. Then I could get used to working with humans while dealing with the tomatoes and cucumbers and the like."

"I would've started a garden," Lennox told him. "Except I kill everything I touch and there isn't really good land to make a garden at the base."

Jazz's holographic eyes flashed with excitement. "That is easily fixed. We can load Katie's truck with soil and dig down into the sand, make a little box garden."

They all glanced at Optimus who considered it. At last he nodded. "It would decrease food costs and could be very therapeutic as you have found."

"If there is therapy with horses and animals, there is therapy for gardening and growing things," Katie murmured distractedly. "Are there more things in the trucks?"

Lennox nudged her with an elbow. "There's still the tables. Wanna go with me and get them?" Nodding, she followed him out. Epps went as well to give the holoforms privacy as if they were human. "You do therapy too?"

Glancing at him while she climbed into the bed of her truck, she shook her head. "I don't but I lent out my animals to therapists if they wanted to use them for their therapy. They usually used mine until they built up their practice so they could get their own."

"Is there _anything_ you're not involved in?" Epps teased, crossing his arms.

Katie shrugged. "I like to help others. I can't handle seeing abandoned animals or people and I especially can't handle seeing others in pain. So I do what I can, I contact therapists and psychologists and offer up my land or my garden or my animals if they think it would help. I had a lot of it so it wasn't any issue."

There was something in her eyes and tone that made Lennox pause from where he was helping her drag the heavy tables to the tailgate. She grunted and tugged at her edge of the table until he rejoined her. With Epps supporting and steadying it, they began lowering it to the ground.

"Why?" Epps asked at last as they were turning to get another table. She didn't seem to hear him so he waited until she turned her head toward him and gestured to catch her eye. "Why?" he repeated. He tried not to over enunciate his words like Sam had done; they told him later that it did more harm than good and made it harder for Katie to read his lips.

She was clearly reluctant to talk about it but she made a face to hide it. It didn't fool either of them but they didn't press her. Hauling on another table, she grunted. "My mom had PTSD." she said shortly. "Didn't think she did so she didn't get any treatment."

Lennox frowned across the table at her as they dragged it over to the tailgate. "I'm sorry," he said, wiping sweat from his brow. "What happened?"

"She saw what she was doing to us...to me, mostly. Committed suicide." This was said in such a matter-of-fact way that spoke of lasting pain.

There was nothing more to say so they fell silent, speaking only to ask for help or direct the moving of the tables. When they were unloaded, they were stacked and arranged on a dolly and pushed into the dining room.

Optimus, Ironhide, and Jazz had put up the remaining shades and were clearing the boxes and packing detritus. With their superior strength they moved the tables on the dolly in record time and had them arranged to Jazz's satisfaction in record time.

"Great job, guys," Jazz said, clapping his hands briskly. "Tomorrow Katie and I are going back to the supply store and getting the rest of the tables and chairs. You're welcome to join us if you want to."

Epps groaned, twisting his torso. When his back cracked he let out an obscene groan. "I'm getting too old for this," he groaned. "But I have nothing better to do, I think. Should we meet you back here?"

"Sounds good, we should be able to get everything we need in Katie's truck so it'll just be moving and setting up." Jazz said, wiping his forehead in a very human gesture despite not sweating. "You ready to get going?"

Checking her watch, Katie nodded. "Chief will be expecting us soon. Did you get the food?"

"I put it in the refrigerator in the kitchen," Jazz told her with a wink. "I wouldn't forget something like that. Not when we promised to bring him dinner."

Lennox groaned this time, throwing his hands up dramatically. "This 'Chief' gets food but _we_ don't?"

Behind him, Ironhide grunted. "Jazz has food for you too," he said gruffly. "And of course _I_ have to take it back. It'll stink up my cab most likely."

"We can eat it now!" Epps said. "There's a bench out back." Laughing, he slapped Lennox on the back. "C'mon, let's go take our payment." With a wave, they walked quickly into the kitchen and out the back.

Optimus frowned at Katie and Jazz. "Chief?" he echoed.

"My father's father." Katie explained, gathering an armful of cardboard to take out back. "I promised we'd stop by for lunch but he called me earlier today and changed it to dinner."

He continued to frown at her as she waddled past him. "Her father was apparently there last night when they had their dinner," Jazz explained, gathering the rest of the trash. "They had a disagreement so she promised she'd come back when her father wasn't there."

"I thought she said her father left her?" Optimus asked, catching a piece of packing tape as it fell. Wordlessly he took some of Jazz's load and helped him to carry it outside.

Jazz shrugged. "It sounds like he's been making a reappearance in her life again. Aside from that I can't tell you much." He sighed. "She doesn't get along with him or so it seems. We'll see how it goes today. Hopefully he won't show up again."

"Me too," Katie said, hearing the last part of it as they dumped the cardboard near her. "I had enough of him last night and I was only there for fifteen minutes. Less, I think." She grunted and swung herself into the cab of her truck. "Are you going to follow me?" she asked before she closed the door.

Jazz smirked. "Darling, I would follow you _anywhere_."

As Jazz's holoform disappeared and the two vehicles drove away, Optimus frowned after them.

* * *

**The song they were singing is called "Pineapple Princess" by Na Leo. It's adorable, you should totally go and listen to it. My ex would call me that when he was teasing me about being weird. When his roommate heard he picked up the name, usually when he was ordering Hawaiian pizza which of course would annoy me. **

**Sorry for the short chapter, though. Things have been crazy.**

**~DC**


	8. Kaeru

**So sorry for the delay. I have long hours at work and training has been eating my brain. There's so much to do and the distance from where I live and where I work makes it so that I get back very late. Combined with an imminent move to my own space with my roommate makes things like this get tossed to the back backburner. Not pushed, **_**tossed.**_ **More like **_**flung**_**, really. **

**But I digress. I promise I'll try to get chapters out at a more reasonable time. I can't promise I **_**will**_**, but I can promise I'll **_**try**_**.**

**Cheers!**

**~DC**

* * *

While it caused a pang of apology somewhere deep inside, Optimus didn't offer the general any sympathy for his fear. He _understood_ it, of course. They were alien to this planet and built on a scale that dwarfed the native species. _Every_ species in fact, unless you count some of those very large sea mammals. His mere existence and sentience disproved everything these intelligent organic creatures thought and was yet another issue that these small creatures had to overcome to be comfortable around him and his men.

Yet another reason that he didn't offer sympathy was that this general had _asked_ for this opportunity. He watched as the man craned his neck up to squint up at his face and after a moment of hesitation threw up a proper military salute.

For humans.

Optimus didn't let his amusement show on his face in any human way of expression and responded patiently in kind for the salute proper for his branch of military and rank. The human seemed to smile into his bushy mustache, pleased.

"Hello, general," Optimus murmured, modulating his voice to seem less booming. The man looked like he would fall over in shock if it was any louder.

The man nodded, muttering into his mustache. "So your designation is Optimus Prime?"

"I am," the Prime replied. "To your understanding my rank is commander of the Autobots."

He was regarded shrewdly for a moment before the general nodded. No doubt he was stung by the "to your understanding" remark. But Optimus had learned long ago that no matter what you said, you would always insult _someone_. "Very good, sir," he said instead. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

Lennox approached, dressed smartly in his full uniform despite the heat and Optimus felt a brief pang of sympathy for his friend. There was a reason that most of their human comrades didn't wear their full uniform around the base. With the presence of this general, Lennox was required to wear full regalia and so were his men should they venture out of the restricted areas.

"Who is your handler?" the general asked, squinting up at Optimus, not seeing Lennox's approach.

"Handler?" Optimus asked, partly amused and partly confused. He had the feeling that the general misunderstood the guardianship roles mechs like Jazz, Ironhide, and Bumblebee had. Likely he thought that the humans were the guardians and handlers of the Autobots rather than partners like they truly were.

The general noticed Lennox and returned the smart salute the captain gave him. "Who is your human liaison?" the general clarified.

"I don't have one," the Prime responded honestly. "I work primarily with Captain Lennox but we are not _partners._" He gentle emphasis on the last word but he wasn't sure that the general caught it.

"Optimus Prime is the primary leader on this base," Lennox explained, standing at ease. Optimus wished that the human would stand more comfortably but this was more for the general than for Optimus. He knew that for humans that pose wasn't particularly uncomfortable, as their joints allowed for more movement than most cybertronian joints, but it was still a disturbing sight to see. "He is in charge especially of the cybertronians and acquisition of materials and supplies. I am in charge of the human personnel and civilians-"

"_Civilians_?" the general cut in. "This is a top-secret military base. Why are there civilians here, captain?"

The corner of Lennox's lips twitched. "The first contact humans had with cybertronians was a civilian boy by the name of Sam Witwicky a few years back. He and his girlfriend were crucial in aiding in the Battle of Mission City and the defeat of the Decepticons. As a result it was decided that they would have clearance to continue relations with the Autobots on Earth. Autobot Bumblebee was assigned a guardianship role over them for their protection."

"Are there others?" the general demanded, addressing Lennox directly rather than Optimus. It was understandable, he felt he had more control over a conversation of his own species and closer to his own size.

For that reason, Optimus knelt to be closer to his height and answered. "Another, yes. Jazz assumed a guardianship role over her. She currently lives on base."

"Why was I not informed of this?" the general demanded, still not looking away from Lennox.

Optimus could tell that his friend was becoming annoyed. "Because you did not have clearance for it," the commander replied reasonably. The general turned to scowl at him before remembering who and what he was scowling at. "You were cleared for today to meet Lennox and myself but you were not cleared to have a list of the faculty and staff of those on this base."

The general appeared to literally chew on those words before answering. "I was under the impression that I was cleared for duty here."

"With your human government, yes," Optimus said patiently. "But we get a choice too. You are not reporting for duty today, you are reporting for another interview."

He could see that the man wasn't happy with that. Likely he was used to getting his way and this revelation stung his pride or something. He chewed on his words again and seemed to be about to say something a few times before deciding against it. Probably a wise choice. "What am I allowed to do at the moment, then?"

"Speak with us. You are allowed into the common areas of the base. I understand that your sun here can be unhealthy for you." Optimus said. Out of the corner of his optic he caught a glimpse of silver and green. "Captain, if you would please take the general inside? I will meet you there; I must speak with Jazz and Ratchet for a moment." His friend nodded and gestured to the other human, leading him into the nearby hangar that served as the common and community room.

The CMO was scowling when he approached. "Katie refuses to let me accompany her to her work," he said once he was in reasonable conversation range. "It is for her own protection yet she still refuses."

"All you do is tell her how inferior her skills are," Jazz snapped back. It was clear to Optimus that it was a long argument between them even before they brought it up to him. "Why would she want to continue working with her?"

"A _true_ scientist would want to constantly be improving her skills," Ratchet sniffed.

If he was human he would have a headache. "We will not force her to do anything she does not wish to," Optimus assured Jazz who continued to scowl at Ratchet. "We can see if we can find another to go out with her."

"We got a transmission from Hound recently," Jazz told him. "He'll be making planetfall within the hour."

Optimus tried not to groan. His day just got harder. "I'll let Lennox know. Have Ironhide and Epps go out and meet him with a squad. Ratchet, you go too."

"I'll go tell Katie," Jazz said, heading for the communal hangar. "She's in the mess." He added, seeing Optimus's pinched look.

Ratchet scowled at his commander and stalked off. As the humans would say, it reminded Optimus of a perturbed felid.

Turning, he followed Jazz to the communal center. His comm. buzzed and he resisted the urge to sigh until he saw that it was from Lennox. "Is something wrong?" he asked, speeding up his walk.

"_You need to get here quick, Op,"_ the human told him urgently.

He grunted and broke into a trot, passing Jazz who looked at him oddly. At the door he slowed to a more decorous place but still entered at a quick clip. Lennox waved to him near the doors to the mess section. He cleared the entertainment space in a few steps. "What's wrong?" he asked as quietly as a twenty-five-foot being could.

"_Keynes_," Lennox whispered, knowing that Optimus would have no issue hearing him.

Optimus's brows rose. "What about him?"

Lennox shook his head. "Not _just_ him. Katie. Katheryne Adelaide _Keynes_."

He walked with Lennox (who trotted beside his feet to keep up) into the mess and found the two human inhabitants squared off and scowling at each other. Fury was written on the general's face; on Katie's it was frustration and exasperation.

"-are you doing here?" the general was demanding.

Optimus could see that she had taken her cochlear implants off and had taken part of it apart, perhaps to check or change the battery. "She can't hear you," Optimus said as they approached. He suspected but didn't say that his lips were probably obscured by his thick mustache so she couldn't read his lips either.

Angrily, the general scowled at him. Katie looked at Lennox, annoyed and confused and he just motioned for her to be quiet. She nodded and glanced at her cochlear implants on the table, resigned.

Jazz's holoform walked in and signed something to her. She shook her head, biting her lower lip. "What is she doing here?" he snapped at Lennox, completely ignoring Optimus as he crouched to be closer to their height.

"I am her guardian," Jazz told him tersely. "Who are _you_?"

The general scowled, straightening his posture. "I'm her _father_."

Katie tugged Jazz's sleeve and signed quickly to him. Even though Lennox had taught himself a few words, the speed of her motions and fingers made it so that he couldn't recognize anything she was saying, even given the context. "Not really," Jazz said when Katie was done. "You sent her away to live with her grandparents, remember?"

Fury twisted the man's face. "And those voodoo motions she did tell you that? Or are you making assumptions?"

Urgently Katie signed something to Jazz who frowned. Turning, she signed something else to Optimus while Jazz spoke. _He doesn't understand ASL and doesn't recognize it as a language. He thinks that it's the work of the devil, on par with blood sacrifices and cult worship._ Her eyes were tearing up but she bit her lip harder to keep them from falling.

"She told me that, yes," Jazz was saying. "I can also see the familial resemblance. Think what you may about me but I'm not stupid."

The general shook with rage. "And who are _you_?"

"Autobot Jazz," the saboteur said stiffly. "Her _guardian_."

He was regarded shrewdly. "As her father I request that you be removed from her guardianship. I will resume that role."

Katie, frustrated, tugged on Lennox's shirt. _What are they saying?_ She mouthed.

"He wants Jazz to be removed as your guardian so he can resume the role." Lennox whispered so she could read his lips. He repeated it again when she frowned in confusion. This time she nodded.

"Ultimately the choice of guardianship is made between both parties," Optimus rumbled, drawing the general's annoyed stare. "If neither of them wish to separate, then they will not and I will support their decision."

The general changed his tactics. "Is it really wise for her to be here?" He asked instead. "Are you capable of caring for a medically and mentally disabled child?"

A tug on Lennox's shirt reminded him to translate. "He asks if Jazz and Op are capable of taking care of you." Katie scowled. "We know you're not an invalid." he added quickly and the frown wrinkling her brow decreased slightly.

"You left her when she was a child," Jazz told the general, barely-controlled rage in his voice. "What makes you think _you_ can take care of her?"

Optimus glanced at Lennox and inclined his head pointedly toward Katie. The captain nodded and drew her away toward the entertainment room and scrounged around for a pen and paper.

_He left when Mom killed herself._ Katie wrote shortly. _I haven't heard from him since...until a few weeks ago._

Taking it from Katie, Lennox wrote, _Does Jazz know?_ Katie shook her head. _U didn't tell him? Y?_

It took Katie longer to write her response this time. _He didn't need to know. Last I heard he was with some bitch he married a few months after Mom's death in UT_. _All of a sudden he's in CA and wanted to meet up to 'make up for lost time.'_

Lennox made a face. _U don't get along?_

_No_. _The thinks I should be a proper lady and that my deafness is just a phase._

The captain hesitated. There was a difference between needing to know the information and prying too much. _So u weren't always deaf?_

Katie shook her head and hesitated as she took the pen, biting her lip. _Mom waited until I knew ASL and how to read lips and how to live with my implants. Then the guilt was too much._

_What about ur dad?_

_He thought mom was just encouraging my bad behavior. Maybe another reason she left._ Katie twisted the pen in her hands. _Once he sent me to Gumma's he left for UT. _

Lennox flipped the pen in his hand thoughtfully. _He's applying 4 liaison w/ th gov't + Autobots. The gov't approved him but we still need to._

For a long moment Katie frowned down at the paper. _Will you hire him?_

The captain chuckled. _Not if Jazz has anything 2 say about it_. He hesitated. _I have no opinion of him yet. We just met._

Katie nodded and sniffed miserably. Lennox was happy to see that she didn't look like she was particularly close to crying.

The door to the mess opened and Jazz's holoform walked out with stiffly. His face softened when he saw Lennox and Katie and as he approached, he held out Katie's cochlear implants, put back together and presumably fixed.

With a smile like a ray of sunshine emerging from an overcast day, Katie took the implants and attached them to her skull. Lennox tried hard to not stare but seeing him looking, Katie moved her hair to show where the magnets attached.

"That's _much_ better," Katie said with a wide grin. She stretched her jaw and clicked her thumb. "What'd you do? It's working so much better now!"

Jazz made a face. "Ratchet fixed it actually. He may whine about you but he really wants the best for you."

"He's still not coming out with me," Katie grumbled.

"I negotiated for Hound to go with you. He'll like that." Jazz told her, throwing himself into a dusty couch, releasing a cloud of fine sand. "He's a scout. Loves exploration, that sort of thing."

Katie smiled. "He sounds great. I'll have to speak to him sometime."

Glancing between the two of them, Lennox sighed and heaved himself to his feet. "I better go back in there. Talk to you guys later?"

The two of them waved to him as he left and continued their conversation. Glancing back as he entered the mess, he saw that Katie had moved so she could lean against Jazz's side.

* * *

To their surprise, Maggie found them a few minutes later, Bluestreak's holoform trailing behind. She immediately sensed that something was wrong and wheedled the story out of them both.

"You need girl time," she decided judiciously. "I know the perfect place. Are you working tomorrow? I am. We're going tonight. C'mon, you two. We're going."

Despite her protests, Katie was dragged to her feet and outside. "You need it," Jazz called after her. "Your hair looks like shit!"

Katie flipped him off over her shoulder as she was dragged away. As Bluestreak drove away, they passed Prime, Lennox, and General Keynes as they emerged from the other side of the hangar. Maggie stuck her arm out of the driver's side window and flipped him off as they passed. Glancing around behind them, Katie saw that Lennox was doubled over in what looked like laughter. Her father looked less than impressed.

"Now that I've got that out of my system," Maggie said, tugging herself back into Bluestreak's cab. "How about some shopping and a spa day? Night. Whatever." At her loud whoop, Bluestreak accelerated, speeding gleefully down the dusty road.

* * *

**Fun Fact: it's one of my pet peeves when people text me things like 'how r u doin?' I simultaneously hate it and am indifferent to it. You do you but I don't particularly appreciate it.**

**The chapter title is Japanese for "come back".**

**Cheers!**

**~DC**


	9. Burlap

**Hey guys, have another chapter.**

**I really hate to do this but I can't tell if anyone is reading this so I will not submit another chapter unless I get reviews. I don't know if anyone reads this and I tend to use the reviews to improve my writing. Do you like the way the characters are portrayed this time around if you read _Friends_? Do you hate it? Love it? What parts about it do you love and/or hate? It's very disorienting for me to write like this and not have any feedback. **

**While I do enjoy writing this, I have other projects I can also work on. If no one is reading this I'll probably put it on the back burner and potentially forget about it. **

**Enjoy the chapter (or not).**

**Merry Christmas :)**

**~DC**

* * *

Coughing, she rolled over on to her back and stared up at the ceiling. When she licked her lips, all she tasted was concrete dust. Beyond the heavy wall or whatever was above her, she could hear voices.

"_Dove sei_?"

She took a deep breath and coughed when her dry throat, irritated by the heavy concrete dust, itched. "_Qui!_" Above her, the wall rumbled and shook.

"_Dove sei_?" her friend called again, closer. Probably even on the other side of the wall.

"_Qui!_" she called again, louder this time. She coughed and spat the cloying dust from her mouth. "_Qui! Attento con quel murro!_"

A crack of brilliant light opened up directly above her, highlighting navy blue fingertips that pried it back. "You okay down there?" an unfamiliar voice called.

It took her a moment to adjust. "Si! Yes!"

"_Attento!_" her friend yelled from somewhere nearby.

The light brightened and the wall groaned. With the new lights, she could see the growing crack. With a cry she scrambled back. "_Attento!_"

With a loud groan the wall crumbled and she twisted, feeling the gust of air from its passage as it fell a few scant inches from her legs. Her friend was swearing on the other end of the great cloud of thick dust.

"_Army? Mama? Stai bene?_" A big red hand reached out of the dark dust and she twisted to avoid it. The fingers impacted the cinderblock wall behind her with too much force and punched through it like it was warm butter.

Leaning against the wall, she propped herself up and scrambled upwards to her feet. She swayed dizzily for a moment and coughed. "_Bene, bene_," she called. Waving her arms around her face, she blew away enough of the dust that she could see and walk forward. She was scooped up and held tightly to a dented and scratched chest. "_Folgore, io sto bene_."

Another form appeared slowly as the dust settled or drifted away. This was the origin of the navy blue hands she had seen earlier, a navy blue and white mechanoid. "Hey, are you all right?"

It took her a moment to switch back to English again. "Yes," she said. "I am fine."

"Did I crush you at all when that wall broke?" the other asked, leaning closer.

"_Cretino_," Folgore muttered and she slapped his hand in warning, ignoring the sting.

The new mechanoid didn't seem bothered by the insult if he understood it, leaning back and looking around. "I guess it was just you in there?" he looked a lot more worse for wear than Folgore did, dented and scraped with pieces of his armor missing judging by the odd gaps. "Maggie?"

Folgore grumbled, twisting her in his hands while scanning her for injuries. "_Come stai? Onestamente?_"

"I am fine, Folgore, yes," she answered in English, remembering where she was. "Honestly. Just a little shaken up." she coughed up more dust and leaning over his fingers, spat the grey mucous into the street. "And dusty," she added. "You?"

Her friend rumbled, kneeling and setting her down carefully on a clear bit of road. "What are you looking for?" he demanded testily of the other mechanoid that was calling something she couldn't quite make out.

"_Sii gentile!_" she hissed, kicking his knee just hard enough for it to register with him.

The other mechanoid wandered back to them, not that he had gone very far. "My partner, Maggie. And our friend Katie - she's Jazz's partner. I don't know where they went."

"_Grande sorpresa. Li perso."_ Folgore muttered.

Whirling, she kicked his leg harder, her steel-toed boots making a satisfying dent in his greaves. Folgore winced. It still didn't hurt him but it got her point across. "_Folgore! Sii gentile!_" Turning, she shaded her eyes to squint up at the other mechanoid. "We'll help you look. What are they called?"

"I'm Bluestreak," he said, gesturing at himself. "My partner is Maggie and our friend is Katie. But she's deaf and I don't know if her implants were knocked out or if anything like that happened."

Together they searched the rubble. She climbed on and over places Folgore and Bluestreak couldn't reach safely but with every passing moment she was more and more convinced that Bluestreak's friends weren't there. Or if they were, they were buried beneath tonnes of rock and steel.

When she scrambled back to the two mechanoids, she found that they were joined by others. One was an ambulance (though why one would paint it green she had no idea), another was a dark green Jeep, and the last was a silver sports car that she didn't recognize. The silver mechanoid's optics zeroed in on her and it (he? probably) held out a hand to help steady her as she climbed down from the wreckage.

"I couldn't find anything." she said, hacking out another grey wad of mucous. "If they heard me, I saw no sign of it."

The silver mechanoid steadying her looked distressed. "Is there anything else we can do?"

"Scent dogs," she suggested. "But that is for the American authorities."

"Where are you from?" The Jeep asked, approaching as well. He knelt to be closer to her height, the tendrils making up his beard swaying with the motion. Strangely enough he reminded her of the American "hillbillies" with his wide, friendly face and large "beard". "Your articulation is different than the dominant language found on this continent."

She glanced at Folgore who was being fussed over by the green ambulance. It really was a hideous shade. "I am from Italy. My name is Armonie. You can call me Army. Folgore does."

The "hillbilly" tilted his head to the side and she smiled when the odd braided cords swayed. "My name is Hound and I just landed a few hours ago."

"Welcome to Earth, Hound." Army said, holding out a hand to shake. Gravely, Hound offered her a finger. "I wish it was under better circumstances."

Behind her, the silver mechanoid shifted his weight anxiously. "What happened here? Do you know?"

"Folgore and I were driving toward the wine farms...ah, _vineyards_ when we saw the fight," Army said, craning her head up at him. "We stopped to help but it was...dangerous."

The distant wail of sirens drew their attention to the flickering lights just visible through the haze. "We need to go," the ambulance said firmly as Folgore sidled over to Army and folded himself into a sleek Ferrari. He was dented and scraped but looked to be in relatively good condition regardless. Or at least in good humor. "Follow us," he ordered as the other mechanoids transformed as well.

Army saw Bluestreak and the silver mechanoid glance longingly at the rubble as if that final glance would bring their partners running to them before they folded themselves into their alternate forms and fell into line.

"_We could probably outrun them,_" Folgore murmured to her in her native language. "_Do you want to?_"

She hummed as they rattled over the torn roads behind that God-awful ambulance. Really, what would you call a color like that? _Fosforescente_? "_What about their friends? Maggie and Katie?_"

Folgore grunted. "_Not our problem,_" he insisted.

"_We should help,_" Army told him softly. "_Wouldn't _you _want help if you lost me?_"

The Ferrari grumbled. "_Hold on, Jazz is pinging me on the comm._" Turning her head, she saw the silver mechanoid - apparently called Jazz - pulled up beside them as they drove. If they were human drivers, it would be dangerously close but Army trusted in their skill and relaxed.

"_You can leave if you want to,_" he told them in Italian. "_Blue and I would understand. This isn't your fight or your headache to deal with._"

Army pursed her lips. Around her she could feel Folgore's excitement, the desire to go again, to be on the run. They weren't on the run _per se_, but the wandering lifestyle suited him. He hated to be tied down, to follow orders.

"_We need to speak about it,_" she told him at last.

The silver sports car beside them revved his engine and fell back in line. "_If you decide to run, tell me an' Blue. We'll foul up the others._"

"_He's a good sort,_" Folgore said grudgingly. "_I didn't know him too well back on Cybertron because he was ranked so much higher than me but he was always a good mech._"

"_He seems like it,_" Army said distractedly. "_What do _you _want to do?_"

Folgore was silent for a while, silently chewing over the question. "_I don't want to fight anymore,_" he admitted to her quietly. "_If we stay here then that's what'll happen._"

"_We can't just leave those two girls,_" Army pointed out. "_I know you feel the same way. Look, let's just help them find them and then we can run away._"

"_They might find us again. They'll chase us down._" Folgore said half-heartedly.

Army chuckled darkly. "_They tried to in Italy, remember?_"

"_That was different,_" Folgore insisted. "_We weren't in a convoy! They didn't know it was us!_"

"_We have Jazz and Bluestreak to foul them up. So what if they know we're here? We can always run and hide again._" Army laughed. "_Let them try to chase us._"

Folgore revved his engine. "_I love the way you think, Mama_,"

"_Stop calling me that._"

"_I'll ping Jazz back and tell him._" Army hummed and ran her fingers over the interior of the car.

* * *

A hand was shaking her shoulder hard enough to make her head shake. Her head and shoulders pounded and the shaking made the world lurch and spin. She groaned, or she thought she did.

When she opened her eyes she found Maggie, looking as battered and beaten as she felt, looking down at her. Her lips moved and she looked relieved. For a brief second Katie panicked. Why couldn't she hear?

Carefully she sat up and took stock of her injuries. A touch to her face revealed a bloody nose with caked blood along her cheek. Her mouth was dry and sticky; a split lip made her wince when her tongue touched it. Reaching up to her ears, she felt the scars from her surgery and remembered.

Maggie was saying something else and Katie stopped her by putting a hand over her mouth. She winced when she saw the lurid bruises and dust coating her fingers. When she had Maggie's attention, she pointed at her ears and shook her head.

Pursing her lips, Maggie handed her something and looking down, Katie saw that it was her implants, mangled and twisted beyond all hope of repair. _Where are we?_ Katie asked. Or that's what she thought she said. She was pretty sure that her lips made the right movements but she couldn't tell what her voice sounded like. Was she even saying anything?

Maggie made a face and dug through her purse. _Decepticons kidnapped us,_ she wrote when she found a pen and paper. _Are you okay?_

Frowning, Katie looked around. _Where_ _are we?_ she wrote, underlining the _where_ a half dozen times.

_Hell?_ Maggie suggested, rolling her eyes. _I __can_ _tell you that we're in a jail cell right now._

Sure enough, there were bars and an old toilet in the corner. She didn't feel up to looking it over more and even if she was she wouldn't want to. Flickering light filtered into their cell through a barred window high above the ground. She gestured at her wrist, tapping it like she was tapping a watch.

_It's really late,_ Maggie said without hesitation. Digging around in her purse again, she pulled out her phone. In the dark they both squinted at the bright screen. It was nearly midnight. More importantly the bars at the top of the screen read _no service_. They traded glances as the screen turned off.

Something made Maggie turn quickly and belatedly Katie followed the direction of her gaze. Through the gloom Katie could make out a dark grey and dark blue form through the bars of their cell. Something had torn the ceiling off and replaced it with what looked like an iridescent glass plate that shifted colors even as she looked at it. Through it she could see the upper torso of the mechanoid looking down at them, the angular wings, and the blood-red optics. It was talking but the darkness made it hard to see more of its face much less its lips even if they were readable to her.

_He says that there's no use trying to run, we're in the middle of the desert,_ Maggie wrote painstakingly. _No one can hear us scream. They will see us if we try to run. Our friends cannot track us, there is no hope for us._

The mechanoid frowned and crouched down. It said something again and Katie looked over at Maggie. Her chin was raised defiantly and she told it something. Katie _thought_ they were talking about her but couldn't be too sure. Though her curiosity ate at her, she bit her lip and sat still, watching the exchange as if she could hear it.

On the other side of the bars, the mechanoid leaned forward. Almost irritably she thought it resembled a child looking at a caged animal at the zoo. She supposed in the end, though, that curious looks were better than furious ones. Its fingers were clumsy and there were fewer than humans hand, not to mention it had less dexterity due to less joints in its fingers but it very carefully signed _My name is Thundercracker_.

Well, it actually signed _My name is Fhundeucuackeu_, having a hard time twisting its fingers properly to make the r shape. It instead resembled a u but Katie had heard stories of Starscream's two brothers Thundercracker and Skywarp and could figure out who he was.

Katie gulped. Not that she had doubted Maggie but knowing that Thundercracker was here (meaning that there were other Decepticons as well) made her stomach sink even lower. _Hi_, she waved weakly.

_I am in charge of your stay here,_ Thundercracker continued, signing slowly as if he knew that his fingers made it difficult to understand him. _Please let me know if you require anything, if you are cold, and so on. _

Maggie said something and judging by the minute frown on Thundercracker's face it was probably rude. _Are we meant to stay here in this room?_ Katie asked instead.

The mechanoid cocked his head. _Yes. My brother Skywarp is looking for blankets and such for you to sleep on._ What wasn't said in the way he meaningfully tilted his head was that Skywarp couldn't be trusted with the two of them.

Katie shivered, both with the chill of the evening air of the desert and with the awareness that these things could easily kill them and would find no issue with doing so. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Maggie demanding something of Thundercracker. It looked like she was asking why they were there.

_The great Lord Megafuon_ (Megatron? Katie wondered. Wasn't that what the Decepticon leader was called?) _ordered Bauuicade to capture you._ Briefly Katie hoped to herself that the Decepticon's name was _Barricade_, not _Bauuicade_ because it was just a strange and sad name even for Cybertronians. _Why he wanted you is not something I needed to know._

Despite his indifference Katie could still see the hard edge in the planes of his face that showed her exactly what he thought of not knowing that information. Especially since he was apparently in charge of their well-being.

Impact tremors warned her of the approach of another Cybertronian. This one was essentially a matte black, slightly smaller Thundercracker. In the darkness she could see his lips moving but of course couldn't hear what he was saying. The iridescent glass over the enclosure rose and what Katie assumed was Skywarp dropped dusty burlap rags in. She saw Thundercracker murmur something to the other mechanoid who shrugged with an unrepentant grin.

Katie glanced at Maggie who shook her head. She shook out the nearest burlap sack and frowned deeply when she saw a large hole in the side. _We are not prepared to take care of humans here,_ Thundercracker signed after waving to get her attention. _But we will only be here for a day. If you get too cold let me know. I can't do much, though._

She waved it off and gestured to Maggie when she opened her mouth. _We can't do anything about it,_ she wrote on Maggie's pad with a firm look at her friend. _They'll tell us later why they want us and the Autobots will come and save us._

Maggie looked uneasy but settled down beside Katie. _I don't even know we'll survive tonight_, she wrote.

Shaking her head grimly, Katie tucked herself beside her friend and piled the burlap bags over them. _That's quitting talk,_ she wrote with a shaky smile. _We can do it._

Nervously Maggie nodded. _What if we can't? I don't think I can sleep…_

Katie wiggled so she could wrap an arm around her shoulder and hugged her to her side. Aware that Thundercracker and Skywarp were watching, Maggie laid her head on Katie's shoulder and closed her eyes. In minutes Katie felt her drift off to sleep.

Sleep tugged at her own mind, from a long and emotional day and from the battering her body had taken in their kidnapping. She looked at the two Decepticons and found that Thundercracker was still crouching to peer through the bars.

_I know it's not very reassuring but I will be here to watch over you. Nothing that Lord Megafuon hasn't ordered will happen to you._ Thundercracker signed slowly and deliberately.

Katie closed her eyes. It _wasn't_ reassuring, but a small part of her was reassured that he would stay and watch over them. He wasn't Jazz or any Autobot, but he would make sure that no one harmed them without orders. They wouldn't die unless the Decepticon leader ordered them.

And if they were kidnapped for the reason Katie thought, it would be the last thing on Megatron's mind. Like Maggie she was asleep in moments.


	10. Human

**Sorry it's a little stilted. It was an awkward chapter to write. **

**~DC**

* * *

Armonie watched as the personnel inspected her passport, trying not to fidget. It was all legitimate but the sooner they gave it back the sooner she was able to go and stay with Folgore while the ugly green mechanoid fixed him. Annoyingly they continued to inspect it as if they expected it to be a fake.

"Where did you get this?" one of the men asked, waving the passport under her nose like it would wave out the lies.

"Italy," she told him shortly.

A more grizzled man, that looked like he was made more for combat than paper-pushing, emerged from a door behind the desks. He wasn't in his dress uniform and had his sleeves rolled up past his elbows due to the heat but his name and rank were clearly displayed. The men glanced quickly at him and then away but didn't rise and salute. She wasn't sure what to make of that when he was clearly high-ranking and very much in charge.

He plucked the passport out of the man's hand and flipped to her information page. "Armonie Ashraqat Scordato?" He glanced at her over the passport and she nodded. "You Italian?"

She tried not to sigh. "I'm _from_ Italy, yes."

"Isn't 'Scordato' Italian?" He wanted to know, sounding more curious than accusatory.

"My husband's family is Italian through and through," she replied. "Mine...not so much."

The man, whose name was Lennox according to the embroidered patch on his shirt, turned to the others clustered around the computer. "Does her passport check out?" His voice took on a harder edge as they fidgeted under his gaze.

"Ye-e-es," one of the men said, drawing out the answer. "But...we can't take the chance it's not. She's working with an NBE…"

Armonie scowled. "I had a passport before I met Folgore," she grumbled. "It's not such an uncommon thing to have."

Beside her, Lennox flipped through the pages of her passport. "If Hot Rod made it for her, then why does it say that she visited all these countries _years_ before he would have landed?" he asked reasonably, showing them the stamps. Decisively he shut the passport and offered it back to her. "Come, I have a few questions for you but we can do that in my office."

Trying not to laugh out loud at the pinched looks on the other men's faces, she followed the man, who looked to be only a few years younger than her. He waved her to a seat while he walked to the mini fridge against a wall. "Can I get you a drink?" he asked. "Water, coke?"

"Coke, please," she murmured, having gotten addicted to the stuff while she and Folgore - Hot Rod - were in the United States. She thanked him when he handed her a bottle and settled in his chair on the other side of the desk.

He took out a notebook and pen and smiled at her. She wondered if it still made all the girls swoon. "Just a few questions. Completely harmless. Then I'll take you back to Hot Rod and Ratchet." He scribbled something on the pad before looking back at her. "So how long have you known Hot Rod?"

An easy enough question and entirely reasonable. "Eight months? I think."

Lennox nodded and made a note of that. "Where did you meet him and how?"

"He crashed into my yard. My kids found him, actually." She paused to take a sip from her bottle.

"Where are your kids right now?" Lennox asked. "Did you bring them with you?"

"They're with their father," she said vaguely, taking another sip of her drink.

Lennox peered at her. "Where?" he asked again, gentle instead of firm. She told herself that was why she answered him honestly.

She dug under her shirt and pulled out the necklace she wore everywhere with her. A crescent moon pendant hung on a fine chain around her neck, bookended by two small stars. "The rest of them are in Agostino's family's...ah...mausoleum? But I keep a little of them with me."

"I'm sorry," Lennox murmured sincerely, making a quick note. He didn't meet her eyes but his eyes flashed to the necklace a few times, as if checking to make sure he had really seen it the first time. "May I ask what happened?"

Armonie pursed her lips and took another sip of her Coke, feeling the burn of the carbonation sting her throat. She told herself that was why her eyes teared up and her throat tightened. "We humans...are just so much...ah...easier to damage...than our...ah...larger friends." That was putting it mildly.

"I have a little girl, just two," Lennox told her quietly, putting his pen down. "I introduced her to my guardian Ironhide. I know he won't hurt her it's just…" He turned a picture frame around and showed her what looked like a class picture of a little blond child.

Gently Armonie picked up the photo and tilted it so there wasn't a glare over the child's face. "She has her father's eyes," she murmured, returning the frame to the desk. "My children were not quite so young." After a brief moment of hesitation she pulled out her wallet and the carefully folded picture inside, offering it to Lennox. "Angelo and Amina were both about to turn 16. Twins."

Lennox looked over the picture. He didn't want to tell her but Armonie looked so much younger in the picture; grief had certainly aged her. The man with his arm around her waist looked like he should've been in a suit smoking a cigar. The twins in front of Armonie tentatively held hands like two teenage siblings being forced to do something they didn't want to do. Amina, the girl, had wavy, dyed hair that made it look like she had strips of cotton candy on her head. Angelo was wearing soccer gear, like he had just come from a practice or a game.

"I was the cool mom. I let them dye their hair if they wanted." Her voice was tinged with sad fondness. "It drove Agostino crazy until Angelo had to dye his hair back to his...ah...natural color for football...ah...soccer."

Lennox's eyes drifted to the twins. "Did Amina play soccer as well?" he found himself asking.

"She was everything her father wanted in a son; he was everything I ever wanted in a daughter." Armonie told him with a wry smile. "I just couldn't dress Angelo up in dresses and frills and Agostino couldn't accept that Amina was better at sports than Angelo was."

He found himself chuckling at that, handing the picture over and watching as she delicately and religiously folded it up and replaced it in her wallet. "If Sarah would let me I'd dress Annabelle up in camo onesies."

The sad crinkle in her eyes didn't go away but she chuckled. He regretted asking her about her dead family. Picking up his pen, he made a note about that for her file. He added _date of death: undisclosed_ to save her the pain of asking.

"June 19," Armonie murmured, taking another sip of her Coke with a hand that shook.

"Excuse me?" Lennox asked, surprised and confused, hand hovering over the pad.

Very deliberately she lowered the bottle and screwed the cap back on. "June 19. Date of death."

So she could read upside-down what he was writing. Or she knew it was desired information for her file. Either was possible. He crossed out _undisclosed_ and replaced it with the date given to him by Armonie. "Year?"

"This year."

Lennox studied her as his hands automatically wrote the date. "_Two months_ ago?"

Looking at a spot past his shoulder, Armonie nodded. Her lips trembled slightly and her eyes were over-bright with tears. "My birthday," she murmured. Standing, she lifted the edge of her shirt and showed him the ugly scars along her side and ribs and rolled her sleeves up to show the burn scars along her arms. He realized that she had covered her body up despite the heat not only to hide the scars from the prying and pitying eyes of others but also to protect it from the sun which would prevent it from healing well. "I was away when they attacked. So was Folgore - Hot Rod." She wouldn't meet his eyes and rolled down her sleeves self consciously. "I like to think that if we had been there no one would have died. But more likely, we would have all died."

"Who attacked you?" Will asked. "Humans? Or NBEs? That is, mechanoids."

Armonie smiled darkly. Despite the heat, Will shivered. "They were called Combaticons. _Were._"

Coughing awkwardly, he jotted down a quick note. "Ok...and what brings you here again?"

"Hot Rod and I thought that we would explore." Armonie told him, taking another sip of her Coke. "Broaden our horizons. Leave the place that brought me so many memories."

Will put his pen down. "You have a visa?"

"Of course." Armonie said with a smirk. "I had applied for one a while ago. We were actually supposed to visit New York City but since...things happened...I decided to visit California. Hot Rod said that the rest of his friends were here and we thought we may...I don't know...maybe see if we could visit without joining the war."

"It's not so much a war now as skirmishes. Mostly what we do now is protect the populace from Decepticons and keep the secret." Will told her kindly. "You're free to do as you want, though."

Armonie leaned forward, placing her bottle on his desk. He winced, then looked away quickly when he saw the look in her eyes. "I couldn't save my family, _Capitano,_" she told him quietly. "But maybe by my help I can save these girls. Your friends. I want to try."

"By doing what?" Will asked gently.

Her eyes were hard as steel. "Everything I can."

"It's dangerous." To her credit, she didn't jump too much when Ironhide's holoform appeared behind her. "What makes you think you're up to it? You're…"

He fell silent at Will's frantic gesturing, guessing where he was headed with his statement. "A woman?" Armonie asked, brows rising. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response other than to tell you that I had a hand in utterly obliterating the Combaticons."

"No doubt with a lot of help from Hot Rod," Ironhide grunted. Will buried his face in his hands.

Armonie stood up stiffly. "I do not need to prove myself to you," she informed Ironhide coldly. "And I can see that you do not want my assistance. I shall be off."

She yanked open the door and stomped out. "That got out of hand very quickly." Will sighed into his hands. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"I don't understand why you're thanking me," Ironhide grumbled. "It didn't sound like it went well."

Will glared at him.

* * *

Katie watched Maggie pace back and forth anxiously, ranting to herself. She knew that technically the woman was talking to her, really, but without her cochlear implants, she heard nothing.

Looking around, she caught sight of Thundercracker sitting in the corner he had been in when they went to sleep. He watched them almost lazily, like a sleepy cat. They didn't stand a chance at escape, so he could afford to relax as much as he was.

Thundercracker said something to Maggie - Katie saw his mouth components move but didn't know what he said - and she whirled to snap something back at him. Judging by the wild gestures of her hands, it wasn't polite. Sighing, Katie pinched the bridge of her nose.

Thankfully, Thundercracker seemed to be the patient sort and didn't take offense to whatever she said. At least, he didn't appear to, but Katie didn't think that he was really one of those dangerous types that hid his feelings until he could take it out on his prisoners.

Maggie snapped her fingers at Katie and she saw the motion rather than heard the noise. Judging by the look on Maggie's face, she had been trying to get her attention for a while. Katie raised her eyebrows and pointed to her ears. _Did you really forget?_

Seeing Thundercracker move, she glanced at the Decepticon. _Are you hungry?_ He signed carefully.

_Yes, please,_ Katie replied, trying to say it out loud as well. Judging by Maggie's wince, she said it too loud.

Thundercracker said something that made Maggie furious, judging by the wild gesticulations the blond made. _I asked her what you humans eat. We aren't really prepared to actually take care of you._

Ah. That made much more sense. Maggie was probably complaining that it was ridiculous that they were kidnapped but their captors weren't prepared to care for them. Standing, Katie stretched and dusted off her clothes. If they ever got out of this situation, she'd definitely have to burn her clothes, but for now they didn't look _too_ bad.

_Is there any running water here?_ She signed to Thundercracker. _Like faucets with clean water?_

The big mech shrugged. _I think I saw a spigot outside._

Out of the corner of her eyes, Katie saw Maggie still ranting, pacing, and gesticulating wildly. _Humans need water and food to survive. If we stay in the desert, we need shade or we will die of heat stroke or burn in the sun._

She appreciated that Thundercracker seemed honestly curious. It was almost sweet if he wasn't also one of their captors. _Your own planet harms you? Why are you not better adapted for it?_

_We use tools and don't expose ourselves. Why aren't your circuits exposed?_

Thundercracker inclined his head in acknowledgement. _Point. What do you eat?_

_Humans are omnivorous. Ideally we want a mix of meat and vegetables. If meat is unavailable, we need some form of protein._ Katie told him and squinted up at him. _But you're not planning on keeping us long, are you?_

The big mech hesitated and both of them glanced at Maggie. She didn't seem to be winding down and didn't notice their conversation. _I don't think so, no._

Katie nodded. _As I suspected. If you can get us canned food, it would be best. Not canned pet food. Canned beans, vegetables, or fruit would be best._ She squinted up at him. _Can't you look this up online?_

_It's one thing to know the facts and another to hear it yourself,_ Thundercracker replied. _I'll make a list of things you suggested and send them to the symbionts. They'll probably the ones that go out and get your food._

_Thank you,_ Katie signed and then twisted until her back cracked.

Thundercracker winced, though if it was because of her motions and the sound of her back cracking (something that wasn't a healthy sound in their culture) or by her thanking him, she wasn't entirely sure. _You shouldn't be thanking me._

So it was the latter, then. Maybe even a little bit of the former. Judging by the way he looked away, it was mostly guilt. When he glanced back at her she smiled shakily. _I understand._

The Decepticon grunted, trying to sound tough and callous, but she could see the slight tightening of the wires around his optics. He did feel some sort of remorse.

She did too.

* * *

"_How'd it go?_" Folgore asked, seeing her stomp out into the main area. Some of the other humans there glanced at them but otherwise went back to what they were doing. Even if they understood Italian, it didn't matter.

Armonie huffed, still angry. "_The big black one - the truck - didn't believe we took out the Combaticons._"

"_Because you're human?_" Folgore asked, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

Her eyes narrowed at him, noting the missing plates of armor. "_Why aren't you repaired yet?_"

"_No amount of bitching will make it go faster,_" Folgore said, optics teasing. Armonie slapped the inside of her elbow as she made a fist and extended her other arm. Folgore only chuckled. "_It was because you were human, wasn't it?_"

She stepped on the extended hand and balanced with the ease of long practice until she could step off and sit on his shoulder. "_Not only am I human, I'm a woman._"

"_I'm aware of that,_" Folgore replied, tilting his head to the side. "_You are human. You are a woman. So? You are an army of one._" He turned his head so she could see his smirk. "_And you have me shaking in my armor when you're on your period._"

She gripped his collar ridge and kicked him hard in the jaw. He yelped in pain. "_I'll show _you!"

"_If you're going to further damage my patient, I will throw you out myself!_" The medic mechanoid snapped as he approached.

Her response was in language more befitting back-alley thugs. "_She's just mad that no one takes her seriously,_" Folgore explained, talking over Armonie's fury.

"_With language like that, I can see why,_" the medic sniffed primly. Folgore reached up and covered her mouth with a finger when her profane tirade continued. "_If she wants to act like a child, I shall treat her like one. She's not allowed in my med-bay. But I need _you _to come in so I can fix your weapon arrays._"

Armonie made a rude gesture at him in the combination of the Italian and American gestures before scrambling down Hot Rod's chest. Despite himself, Ratchet was surprised and a bit impressed. She was quicker and nimbler than he gave her credit for. Like an angry cat, she stalked off.

There were a few people in the lounge area and they eyed her oddly but didn't say anything when she sat on one of the empty couches. She pulled out her phone and checked her messages.

Drago had texted her asking how she was doing. She responded that she was well enough and she'd call them later to update them on their status.

The next message was from Sirena. He wanted to know what the name of the TV show about the doctors in the ER was. She suggested trying _Grey's Anatomy_ or _Scrubs_.

Her last message on her phone was Saetta asking how her bracelet was doing. He also told her that he was making his own way to the United States and hoped to meet up with her and Folgore.

"You can't have that here," someone protested. Without looking up, she suggested things he could do with a goat that his mother may have already done to create him. It was in German and she was fairly certain that he didn't understand it but her tone was unmistakable.

Saetta messaged her again, asking if she was all right. She wondered if he had heard about them being attacked and the two girls being captured.

_Folgore is being repaired as we speak. They don't believe I can help them find the girls._ Armonie texted back.

She appreciated how prompt Saetta was. _They'll learn,_ he assured her. _I'm in a barge heading toward San Francisco. I can help you with anything?_

_Jesus, when did you get on that freighter?_

"Cell phones are prohibited here," a man told her authoritatively. "How are you even getting service?"

She ignored him. _They're telling me to put my phone away. They don't trust me yet. But get here as fast as you can. I need you to help me find these girls._

Bless his heart, Saetta didn't argue. _I'll do what I can. At the latest I should be there tomorrow afternoon._

_I'll have leads by then._ With a flick of her wrist, she made her phone disappear. "Better?" She asked the man standing over her. He didn't look amused.

"It's okay, Epps," a voice with a Cajun accent said behind her. "I'll take care of it. I need to get my own report from her anyway."

The man cast a dubious look over her shoulder before stalking away. One glance at the person that joined her on the couch told her that he was an Autobot. He sat just a little too still and his movements were just a little too deliberate. After spending a month and a half of hunting mechanoids, it was almost too easy to spot the differences now.

"_Clever trick,_" the Autobot told her in Italian, keeping his voice neutral. "_Where'd you learn it?_"

She brought a hand to her throat, wrapping her fingers around her necklace. "_A magician never reveals her tricks._"

"_I'm Jazz,_" the Autobot told her. "_Katie's guardian. Ironhide told me what you said to Will in there._" He jerked his head toward the captain's office. "_He doesn't believe you. I do._"

She pursed her lips. "_They killed my family so I killed them. Whether you believe me or not is your business._"

"_Me believing you may help me get my friends back faster,_" Jazz told her seriously. "_What can you tell me?_"

Looking away, she sighed. "_Very little. But Saetta and Folgore helped me fight. I can go places that you can't because I'm not a holoform and cannot be tracked with an energon reader._"

Jazz leaned forward. "_They don't know what they want with Katie and Maggie or even if they're still alive. So for right now, they're not going hunting for them until we hear from the Decepticons._"

The other humans looked at them almost suspiciously. When Jazz glanced at them, they looked away. "_Act more human,_" Armonie advised, putting a hand on his arm. "_They can think that we're just talking about our loss._"

Jazz seemed to wilt. "_What if something happens to them?_"

"_As soon as Folgore is repaired, I mean to go back out and do my own investigating. What information can you give me?_" Amonie asked. She hesitated. "_My other ally, Saetta, says he's on his way. He should be here tomorrow afternoon._"

He cocked his head to the side. "_Saetta?_"

She patted his arm. "_You concentrate on lighting a fire under that asshole medic's ass and getting Folgore repaired faster. We'll be gone after that and then do our own searching._" Hesitating, she made her phone appear in her hand again. "_Sync your comm with my phone so I can contact you if I get any leads._"

"_Why are you so set on this?_" Jazz wanted to know.

"_I couldn't save my family but if by my actions, I can save your friends, I'll do everything I can._"

He put his hand over hers on his arm. "_Thanks._"

"_It's in my name. I'm an army of one. That's what Folgore keeps telling me, anyway._"


	11. Comfort

**Another awkward chapter but it'll get better, I promise. Things start to move more in the next chapter. **

**Thank you to all those who reviewed. I had a really shitty week and it was so lovely to see them!**

**~DC**

* * *

"I'm sorry about Ironhide." Armonie looked up and found Will Lennox standing over her. She must've been pretty out of it for him to sneak up on her like that. Saving the page on her data-pad, she looked up at the captain. "And I'm sorry that I couldn't come out sooner. Something came up."

She smiled at him a little shakily. "We're all entitled to our opinions, I guess," she murmured. "I do not have to agree with them."

Running a hand through his hair, Lennox gestured to the couch beside her. Armonie nodded and watched as he sat heavily. A small puff of tan dust rose up and hung in the still air around them both. "You understand our concerns, though."

"Of course." Armonie told him. "You don't know me. Why should you trust me much less when I claim to have played a part in killing the Combaticons."

"I've been in battle with the Decepticons," Will told her gravely. "Men and women have died fighting them. It's _hard_ for us small humans to kill them and you claim to have killed...what, five? Six?"

Armonie frowned. "Five," she told him. "And I didn't say it was easy."

"Ironhide told me how ruthless they are." Will told her. "I want to believe you, I do. But the facts I'd been told conflicts with your story. How did you and Hot Rod take five 'Cons on alone?"

"Divide and conquer," Armonie told him flatly. "We lured them apart and destroyed them one by one." Seeing the direction the conversation was going, she opened her data-pad once more.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lennox scrub his face with a hand. "Look, Armonie, what _really_ happened?"

She glanced at him. "They killed my family. So I helped murder them. That is all."

"It's not, is it?" Lennox pressed. A light blinked on her data-pad and she glanced down at it, opening the message the light indicated. It was from Drago informing her that Saetta was on his way via freighter. "Normal bullets don't go through their armor."

"I had special ones made," she said distractedly as she typed, _He texted me as well. Says he'll be here by tomorrow_. She pulled up her messages with Saetta, who had rigged her data-pad to reflect the messages on her phone as well. _I hope you have more of my rounds with you._

The couch creaked as Lennox leaned forward. "High-heat sabots?" He asked.

"The heat necessary to melt the armor effectively requires the sabots to be shot at high velocities," Armonie said distractedly. Saetta replied promptly, as ever. She suspected he was bored on the freighter he had hitched a ride on. _I have enough magazines to let you take over the world. I've also been working on a few prototypes._

It was hard to keep the smile off her face. "Then what would _you_ recommend?" The captain asked, sounding a little stung. She didn't blame him. Not when to him she was only a housewife that lost husband and children. She had the mannerisms down by now that she could even fool Augostino sometimes.

Saetta's message blinked. _The ship is about to dock._

_Good._ She typed back. _When you are ready for a hunt, let me know._ He was relatively peace-loving, as she was, but things like this, like kidnapping two innocent girls as leverage or murdering an innocent family, made his blood boil.

"Who are you talking to?" Lennox asked and she glanced at him. "How are you getting service here?"

"My friend...how do you say...tricked out my iPad." she told him with a smirk. "I get service and reception everywhere."

Footsteps boomed around them and Hot Rod they looked up to see Hot Rod and Ratchet approaching. "I even got a new paint job." Hot Rod said, showing off the shiny new paint. There were now flames along his legs and upper arms. "Cool, huh?"

"Stop strutting like a peacock," she told him fondly as she shut down her data-pad. "Saetta's docking. We should be off if we want to meet him."

His response was entirely non-verbal, taking two rapid steps forward and folding down into his Ferrari form. Faster than they gave her credit for, Armonie was off the couch and in Hot Rod's cab. "If that's all? You have my contact information." With a wave, she was gone.

"Was she cleared to leave like that?" Lennox asked Ratchet who shrugged.

"Optimus Prime spoke with Hot Rod during the last of his repairs," the medic told him. "He just cleared him. Is she clear as well?"

Lennox looked out at the dust plume already disappearing from view. "I still have a few questions for her but more or less, yes. Not that we can really stop them now." He hesitated. "My gut tells me that she's good even though certain aspects aren't lining up."

"Your gastrointestinal tract is incapable of making judgments much less communicating with you," Ratchet told him disapprovingly.

Glaring up at the green medic, Lennox walked back to his office.

Saetta met them at the address Jazz sent to her phone. The Autobot himself was there with another and both ushered them into the kitchen of the restaurant.

"My name is Bluestreak," the new Autobot said. "The blue Mustang out there. Jazz said you could help?"

"We took down the Combaticons in Italy," Saetta told them solemnly. Fury shone in his grey-blue eyes. "They took two girls and who knows what they're doing to them? Do they even know how to take care of them? Are they hurt?"

Armonie put a gentle hand on his arm. "If we can help, we will." She assured Bluestreak. "My name is Armonie. Armonie Scordato. This is my friend Saetta. Hot Rod is my guardian."

"Don't worry, Blue, Jazz," Saetta murmured, clenching his fists tightly. "We'll get them back."

Hot Rod appeared in the kitchen beside Armonie. "All right. No one seems to have followed us."

"Does it matter, anyway?" Armonie asked.

Jazz fiddled with a menu on the table in front of him. It was marked up with corrections to be done and suggestions for dishes in two different inks and handwritings. "What are our assets right now?"

Armonie extended her arm and showed him and Bluestreak the charm bracelet on her wrist. It was one of the long chains wrapped multiple times around her arm and decorated with twenty or so tiny charms. Looking closer, they saw oddly mundane things like a duffel bag, another slightly different duffel bag with sports equipment poking out, books, a cell phone, shoes, and a purse. When she flipped her wrist over, they saw other odd things like a tiny knife, grenades, what looked like a treasure chest, handguns, rifles, and rocket launchers.

"Humans can't quite access subspace the way a Cybertronian can," Saetta explained. Unlike Armonie, he didn't have an Italian accent. "Having one pocket and having to dig through it to get to anything is much too complicated for a human to be able to do quickly. For a Cybertronian, a thought and the blaster you wanted is in your hand, or the data-pad you had been looking for. So I made this to allow humans to access their own subspace pockets. Show them, Army."

She flicked her wrist and touched the handgun charm as it flopped to rest in her palm. Then she opened her hand and as if by magic, a Glock appeared there. Poking the charm that looked like a treasure chest with her thumb, a magazine appeared in her hand. Expertly she loaded the gun and then placed it on the table with the safety on.

Jazz's brows rose. "Clever."

"It was a pain to get the circuity so small and to modify the standard subspace pocket size to something more befitting a human with human belongings," Saetta said, sounding as if he agreed. "But it was worth it. Armonie could travel with us without baggage cluttering up our own subspace pockets and if she was separated from us she still had a means to defend herself." He pointed to the bracelet. "If she was searched, none of the human authorities would pick it up and as far as I'm aware, no one who's scanned her has picked it up at all."

"Saetta gives me all the cool gadgets," Armonie murmured. She began unloading her arsenal from her subspace bracelet. "He also updates all of my ammunition."

Saetta thumbed the latch on the small chest Armonie deposited on the table. He revealed that it was filled with magazines and boxes of ammo. "My own special blend," he said, grey eyes twinkling with mischief. "It cannot penetrate Cybertronian armor, but if she can hit the exposed areas she can do a lot of damage." He shook a bullet and they heard light clinking. "The bullet itself is hollow and filled with tiny flechettes. It can really destroy all those delicate tubes and wires." He reached for the next box Armonie set down and pulled out an odd spherical device. "This here is some of the incendiary grenades I made for Armonie when we were hunting the Combaticons." He squinted at her. "I thought you had used all of these."

"I thought so too," Armonie replied. "Turns out I had a whole other box in my subspace pocket. I thought they were the smoke bombs."

Hot Rod put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't forget that she's colorblind."

He was treated to an icy stare from Armonie. "I am _not_ colorblind."

"I even labeled them," Saetta whined.

"In Cybertronian," Armonie told him levelly. "I may be decent at languages but that chicken scratch script makes my head spin." She slapped the last of her weapons, of all things a longbow and a case of arrows, on the table beside her odd assortment of armaments. "These are the assets I can provide."

Lips twitching in amusement, Jazz and Bluestreak looked over the items on the table. Assorted handguns, rifles, a rocket launcher, the case of spherical grenades, the chest of ammunition, arrows, a longbow, and several types of body armor.

"Where did you get all of this?" Bluestreak asked, something like awe in his voice.

Armonie shrugged. "Most was modified from what my husband already had. Some I stole."

"With help," Hot Rod reminded her, crossing his arms and leaning back against the refrigerator.

"With help," Armonie agreed, nodding at him. "As if I could forget."

Bluestreak's brow wrinkled. "Are you on the run with the Italian police because of it?"

"We covered her tracks," Saetta said dismissively. "Like we would let her be arrested for it." He propped his hands on his hips. "Is this it? All the assets we have right now?"

Armonie glanced at him. "We're negating your natural weapons and armors, right? This is pretty good considering there's only one human on board here. So far." Hot Rod snorted derisively. "I'm willing to bet that everyone else is under orders to not go after us or the girls," she said thoughtfully but kindly. "They might lose everything they had built up on a rescue mission where they don't even know the destination."

Both Bluestreak and Jazz were nodding. "I'm sure they want to help but they don't know even that they're alive or where they are."

Hot Rod snorted again but at Armonie's glare, didn't say anything. "Do _we_?" she asked instead. "Any hints? Ideas?"

"I picked up a blip from Maggie's cellular phone a few hours ago," Bluestreak told her, pulling an atlas presumably from subspace. She put the larger items on the table away in her subspace bracely and helped him opened the book to a map of central California near Nevada. Using a pen, he marked the position he picked up from the phone.

Jazz leaned forward. "Katie's deaf but has cochlear implants. Ratchet and I fixed them yesterday and just to be safe put a tracker in them. In case something like this happened." Taking the pen from Bluestreak, he drew a circle that included the little X Bluestreak had drawn. "We designed it so we couldn't exactly pinpoint her but have an idea of where she is. Let her have some freedom, you know?" He tapped the circle with his pen. "She _should_ be somewhere in this circle which correlates with what Blue picked up."

They all leaned over the map and for Armonie's benefit, Jazz marked their current position. She flashed a quick smile at him in thanks. As she studied the map, she put away the arms on the table.

"Should I find it funny that they're near...Death Valley?" Armonie asked, squinting at the little words printed upside-down to her.

Beside her, Hot Rod snorted. Saetta sighed. "It would be weirder if you didn't."

* * *

Katie sorted through their purses for anything useful. Things like her makeup and her headphones were cast aside. She didn't need to be pretty for anyone and she couldn't hear her music anyway. After a second of hesitation, she tucked her credit cards and some cash aside. Who knew if she'd need them later. She kept her phone as well, hoping that it could be tracked by Jazz or any of the other Autobots.

Done, she went to her cochlear implants and picked through the wreckage. As she expected, she found a small chip on the battery. This she tucked into her pocket. After a brief moment of hesitation, she pulled it out and tucked it into her bra so it pressed against her skin. She felt her pulse against the battery and chip and pretended it was Jazz's comforting arms around her. It gave her heart, just a little, but it was more than enough.

Maggie nudged her and showed the pile of things she had collected as well. A few old pads and tampons in a ziploc bag, her pad and paper, her wallet and checkbook, a few small tubes of ibuprofen and Midol, and her cellphone whose batteries had run down in the middle of the night. Curious, Katie pointed at the pads and tampons. _Ghetto bandaids_, Maggie wrote on the pad. Katie giggled.

Seeing Maggie turn, Katie followed her gaze and saw two human-sized mechanoids entering their enclosure. The blue one snapped something at her and she shook her head, backing away. Faster than she thought possible, he grabbed her by the shoulder in a vice-like grip. The pain made her head spin.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the red one push Maggie away when she came to help her. The blue one shook her roughly and she thought she cried out in pain as the movement pressed harder on her collarbone.

The floor rumbled and the blue mechanoid was wrenched away. Katie cried out in relief in pain as the pressure got worse moments before it got better. There was a perfect imprint of his hand on her shoulder and neck, bruised already from the strength he had exerted on her delicate organic flesh.

New pain flared in her leg and this time she screamed. The red one had kicked her before he too was yanked up into the air. Maggie ran to her side and she screamed again when her friend touched her injuries.

Maggie fumbled beside her with the child-proof cap on the ibuprofen bottle and looking for anything else to focus on, Katie looked around for their attackers. Not seeing them on their level, she looked up.

And up.

And up.

The new mechanoid holding the two smaller ones that had attacked them was even larger than Thundercracker's navy blue bulk and even then seemed to tower even more above their jailer from the way he held himself. Thundercracker stepped into their cell and knelt, filling almost every available space with his great bulk.

Despite his surprising gentility in handling her, reaching to touch her injuries, pain flared and made her head spin. Everything went black.

* * *

**"It would be weirder if you weren't" is one of my favorite quotes from Archer for some reason. **

**Dedicated to my friend that broke his collarbone.**


	12. Subway

**Things are starting to pick up. I'm beginning to readjust everything and how the timeline and characters interact. **

**As ever, review and I will post another chapter. :)**

**~DC**

* * *

"What are you doing in my bed?" A thought occurred to her and she sat up quickly. She groaned and fell back as the room spun around her and her stomach violently protested her movement. When her stomach settled she cracked her eyelids against the bright light. "Did we…?"

The other person in her bed snorted and handed her a glass of water. "Just because I'm in your bed doesn't mean we had sex."

Her stomach lurched but she managed to get a few sips of water down. "Pity."

"Only you would say that," her guest sighed. "Everyone thinks we're an item and the moment you think we may have actually hooked up you express regret."

If her stomach wasn't rolling so badly, she would've laughed. When she opened her mouth for a witty retort, her stomach lurched again and she found herself vomiting into the bucket thrust under her nose. "Why am I so sick?"

"You decided it was a great idea to do four shots in half an hour," the person holding the bucket said. "Or did you want a detailed explanation about what actually happens to the human body during a hangover?"

She glared at him as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'm going to take a shower. And drug myself. Hopefully I fall and drown in the shower."

"I'll miss you," he told her breezily. "You make me seem remarkably patient and stoic. Without you people might think that I'm a normal human being."

With a last, baleful glare at him, she shuffled off to the attached bathroom.

* * *

When Katie woke up again, Maggie tried so hard to not grab her and hug her tightly. For one, it would cause her fractured collarbone great pain. She offered the dirty bottle of water to her and a few ibuprofen pills.

Poor Katie took a while to be able to prop herself up enough to accept both but Maggie did her best to help without causing her too much more pain. Despite her best efforts, when the ordeal was over Katie's face was wet with tears of pain and she had bit her lip so hard it was bleeding.

Unfortunately, the injured arm was her dominant one and the one used primarily for ASL. Thundercracker was kind enough to explain why it would be harder for all of them to communicate. To her surprise there had been something like regret in the Decepticon's face and she filed it away to tell the Autobots if - _when_ \- she saw them again.

"How is she?" the Decepticon asked where he crouched by the bars to their cell.

She glared at him. "In a lot of pain. The painkillers should kick in soon though."

Thundercracker winced. "Is there anything I can do right now?"

The poor guy seemed honestly regretful that Katie was injured. If he wasn't their jailer, she'd think it was almost sweet. "She's going to need food. I'd give her simple stuff like broth or bread." When Thundercracker cocked his head to the side like a confused dog, she realized that he didn't have a sense of taste and wasn't familiar with humans. He probably didn't know what a "simple" meal was.

"Can you find things like that at a gas station?" he asked and she blinked.

"A gas station?" she echoed. "You'd trust us in a gas station?"

Thundercracker shrugged. "We're in the middle of nowhere," he pointed out. "There aren't many places you can run."

Thinking, Maggie walked to the small pile of things they kept from their purses and counted the cash they had pooled together. "We don't have much money. $42 here. A can of broth doesn't cost much but we'd need more painkillers for her and something to wrap her leg." They both looked down at the injured area and winced at how swollen and lurid it was. It matched all of the ugly bruises already decorating her pale skin. If anyone saw her, they'd think she was a victim of domestic abuse. Maggie filed it away for later.

Bless him, Thundercracker seemed to understand. "Normally we'd send the symbionts in but...well…" she figured that the symbionts were the two human-sized ones that had so injured Katie. "And we don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves of our position."

She appreciated his candor and told him so. It seemed to amuse him even just a little but it was pained and stained with guilt. She never thought she'd see it on the face of a Decepticon.

"I'll send the request in. You may need to shoplift." Again he seemed regretful. It was almost endearing and she didn't know how to feel about that.

Something nudged her side and she glanced over to see that Katie had written something on the notepad and was using it to get her attention. Her face was pale and sweaty in pain and using her discarded blazer, Maggie dabbed at the sweat while she read the note. _How long was I out?_

_A few hours. It's morning now. I think._ It was hot enough to tell her that the sun was definitely above the horizon. _How do you feel?_ The look she received in reply said it all. She smirked back.

Thundercracker shifted politely to draw her attention. "A trip for food and supplies has been approved," he murmured to her as quietly as a twenty-odd foot-tall mechanoid could. Not that Katie could hear him anyway but she had found very quickly that Thundercracker was oddly polite like that. "I do not think that Katie is in any condition to leave the base like that but I leave it for you two to decide."

In a few quick sentences, Maggie explained what was happening to Katie via the notepad. She hoped that Katie could read between the lines since it was very possible that the pad would be checked for escape attempts or plans.

After reading her response, Maggie turned to Thundercracker. "We need to see how she manages walking around now before we take her anywhere." She explained as she helped Katie get to her feet. Her injured leg buckled but held her. "If we go slow she'll be fine. But we need to cover up your bruises and make a sling for that arm."

Katie wrote painfully slow with her left hand while Maggie held the pad as still as she could for her. _Switch clothes_.

She considered it and sighed. "It's the best course of action," she agreed, nodding for Katie's benefit. "We can use the blazer for a makeshift sling too." She added, shaking the jacket out, pointing at Katie, and miming putting her arm in a sling. Katie nodded.

In the end, a curious and amused Thundercracker had to help them fashion the blazer into a sling. He ended up holding a blade component in his fingertips out and still while Katie awkwardly used her left hand and much of her right as she could to slice two holes in the inner lining. Smirking at Maggie, she threaded her right arm through one hole and out the other before sliding the blazer around her back and putting her left arm through the arm hole. The tears in the fabric kept her arm tucked securely at her side.

"I'm a little concerned that you know how to do that," Maggie murmured and as if she understood (she probably got the gist of it, considering she had been staring at Maggie's lips), Katie smirked. "Now changing clothes is going to be an even more awkward experience, I can tell."

Katie had been staring at her lips and after a brief moment's pause where she seemed to be processing what she "read", she smirked again. Her face was still pale and drawn in pain and sweat dripped from her brow but she seemed in good enough spirits. Maggie wondered darkly how long it would last.

* * *

"So I heard you had a date last night," looking up, she scowled at the too-cheerful man who waggled his eyebrows at her. "Have fun?"

"Yeah, Jackson," she muttered, taking a sip of her Gatorade. "It was a date with myself."

Jackson didn't take the warning in her tone and eyes and nudged her with her elbow. "Oh, drop the act. I heard you went on a date with _La Pancetta_."

Her head ached and she thought her eye twitched. "There are so many things wrong with that statement I don't even know where to start." She took a sip from her drink then flicked Jackson's nose like a bad puppy. "Pancetta is basically bacon. You just called Kent 'bacon'. I'll tell him you said that, too, don't think I won't."

"No need." Jackson squeaked and turned to find the man in question behind him. "To continue on that thread, no, we did not go on a date last night. I don't appreciate the gossip about our personal lives like that."

To his credit, Jackson had quite the pair and didn't scurry away like most would. "Are you two just in denial?"

"I suppose gossip like this is more interesting than their own boring lives," she muttered into her drink and Kent snorted.

"Deniiiiiiaaaaal," Jackson sang as he skipped off.

Kent glanced after him. "And he wonders why people think he's gay." He watched as she choked on her drink. "I got something interesting for you."

That got her attention. "Gimme."

With an amused and almost affectionate glance at her, Kent handed the folder over. "Remember that farm that was attacked? The animal shelter/vet clinic?" It was rhetorical but she nodded anyway. "Well we can't get a hold of her _or_ her roommate. They're MIA."

"I'm sure they're just staying with friends or family," she murmured, skimming Kent's notes in the folder.

"All of their appointments were cancelled _indefinitely._" Kent said, leaning over her. He rarely loomed over her like that so of course she paid attention to it. Not that she would ignore him anyway. "A few of them called to make inquiries if they were reported missing." He tapped the top of the folder. "The girl - Katheryne Keynes has two relatives in town. Her father, and his father. I called her father and asked about her, he said that her location was highly classified and hung up. Her grandfather said that the last time he saw her was a day or two ago with her roommate 'J' but she hasn't been returning his calls since. All of them go straight to voicemail."

They shared a telling glance between them. "What information do we have on him?" she asked, flipping through the papers even as she asked.

"Nothing. The house was willed to her by her maternal grandmother and there's no record of her having a roommate. No one knows his name, really, but the people I talked to have heard him called 'Jacob'. The ranchers all know him as 'J'. Never got his name - that's all everyone ever called him." Kent sounded disgusted. "We need to find him."

The chair creaked as she leaned back thoughtfully. "What about her car? Is it registered to her?"

"2007 Honda Ridgeline, blue, registered to her. Records with the DMV say that she has another car registered to her, a 2009 Pontiac Solstice, silver." Kent said. "Two cars. _Two_. Why does she have a _new_ car that can hardly drive up and down her driveway? She runs a large-animal practice where she regularly goes to farms and ranches. Places a car like a Pontiac just _can't_ go."

She glanced at him. "Is that envy I hear?" Kent glared at her. "Oh, come on. I'm teasing. But you're right, it is strange."

Kent leaned forward. "But _this_ is the most interesting part." He jabbed a thin finger at the green tab poking out between the pages. Obligingly, she flipped to that page and her brows rose toward her hairline. "She rented a restaurant a day before she disappeared."

"What, you think she's caught up in some restaurant mob thing?" she asked with a chuckle. She reached for her Gatorade again.

Kent shrugged. "I just find it odd. There's a lot of odd things about her." He began ticking points on his fingers. "The government immediately took over her case as soon as it was reported. Why? Her father says that her location is highly classified but her grandfather, who she is on good terms with, hasn't seen her or heard from her. Not even that she would be going away. She cancelled all of her appointments last-minute which the ranchers I've spoken to have said that she _never_ does. She has a car that she can take to her appointments and another one that can hardly make it down most driveways."

She held up a hand and with a mutter, Kent stopped talking. "You're not helping my headache," she said almost affectionately.

"Maybe then you shouldn't have taken four shots in a half hour last night," Kent snapped back though it didn't have any heat. His blue-grey eyes were amused.

With a groan, she got to her feet. "All right, _fine_, we'll go talk to the chief." She punched him lightly in the shoulder.

He nudged her back. "Already did. Just have to pick you up."

"Did you go over my helmet?" she teased.

One of the officers at the desk she passed guffawed. His buddy across the aisle, who was tossing a ball through a hoop mounted on his desk, rolled his eyes. "Not over, more around." The one who laughed said, making a frame around her ass as she passed. She turned and glared at him and by the prickling on the back of her neck, Kent was glaring at him over her shoulder as well. "No," the laughing one said, cackling. "Not the Schwartz!" Still howling with laughter, he leaned back in his chair and mimed being choked, with his hands around his neck. She caught the ball his buddy lobbed at her and beaned him in the crotch. He stopped laughing but his friend picked up where he left off as the ball rolled innocently across the aisle.

"He'll learn," the chief muttered, leaning against his doorway. He tossed a bottle of Gatorade at her which she caught. "Try not to puke."

Flipping him off, she followed Kent out the door.

* * *

"Erin! Nicole! What a pleasure to see you," Chief said as they came over and gave him a hug. Erin needed a little more help from Nicole but her hug was just as warm and friendly as he remembered from her last visit. "Have you grown?"

Erin laughed, high and light. Her eyes were still pale and sightless, without even contacts to cover the extensive burns. He supposed that it wasn't needed if they were just visiting him. "The doctor says I got no more left in me."

He clapped her on the shoulder. "I'm sure you got a lot left in ya," he told her. "Just not in the height department."

"We tried to call Katie and see if she was free to meet us all here," Nicole told him as Erin pretended to be insulted. "We can't seem to get a hold of her, though."

His smile faded. "I saw her not too long ago myself but all my calls go right to voicemail. I must've left five already. I'm worried about her," he admitted.

Erin reached out to pat his shoulder but missed by a few inches. She groped around a little until she found his arm and then squeezed it lightly. "I'm sure she's fine," Nicole assured him. She helped Erin to one of the cushioned benches on the porch and sat beside her. "Maybe she's just busy? What has she been up to lately?"

The whole story of Katie's week spilled out of him. Maybe he shouldn't have really told them _all_ of it, but no matter what everyone seemed to say or think about Erin and Nicole, they were survivors of things worse in some ways than the attack on Katie's house and practice. He liked that they didn't spare empty words of pity, that they asked practical questions and listened to whatever he told them with cool aplomb.

He had a soft spot for them ever since he had seen his two granddaughters after the terrorist attack in Mission City. In their complicated family tree (as is any family tree when you _really_ looked at it, he supposed), they were from his wife's line, his sister-in-law's child's daughters but while they recovered he decided that they may as well have been his. Aldrin was his only son and oldest but he had two daughters. One had yet to settle down and last he heard was at a research station in Antarctica. The other had moved to Iceland of all places. He had met her husband once, a very nice traditional Nordic man but he only knew his grandchildren by name and by the occasional picture she sent, which was usually a yearly Christmas card.

Of course, Aldrin only had one child and once Marie had passed, bless her soul, had remarried in Utah to some perky-titted bimbo a good ten years younger than him. God, he hated Adalie. As it sad that he liked his son's first wife more than he liked his son's new wife or even his son himself?

He knew there was a God out there because Katie took more after her mother than Aldrin. Perhaps that was why she was so successful. It was terrible that he thought so.

"The police called?" Nicole asked.

That's right, they did. "Yeah. They wanted to ask Katie and J a few questions."

"I thought they weren't handling the investigation." He'd forgotten how much a team Erin and Nicole were. Even before Erin's accident they had been inseparable (as he understood). Now they seemed extensions of each other, working in complete tandem.

He thought about that. "I suppose they're not. But I haven't heard from whoever is."

"Maybe they're just checking up on you and Katie," Nicole suggested. "Well, more Katie but I guess they can't get a hold of her either."

"Strange," Erin agreed. She was rolling around a ball of playdough in her hands. Since being blinded she had picked up the odd habit of always wanting something to do with her hands. He was no psychologist, but Chief thought it was a form of coping for her to get over that she could no longer see.

They talked about other things until Nicole glanced at her watch and gently reminded Erin that they had other relatives to visit. "We'll come back," Erin assured Chief as she gave him a hug. "We just have a lot of people to see today."

He pinched her nose and she laughed, milky eyes crinkling in happiness. "I'll hold you to that." Nicole hugged him and gently led Erin to the car. Though the girl was very good with her cane, Nicole always hovered at her elbow, steering her gently. Erin didn't seem to mind.

Extensions of each other, he was sure of it.

He waved at them as they drove off.

"You don't find it weird?" Nicole asked Erin in the car as she navigated the driveway.

Erin, who had just pulled her ball of playdough out of her pocket, glanced at her. It was a residual habit even though she couldn't see. "Hmm?"

"Why are the police interested in Katie? Who took over the investigation?" Nicole asked. Her fingers drummed on the wheel of the car. "Why are the _police_ following through on something that isn't their investigation? Why waste the manpower?"

For a while, the only sound in the car was the squish of Erin kneading her dough in her hands and the whisper-rasp of the tires. "I feel like everything is about to come together," Erin said at last, in the odd voice she sometimes got. Nicole called it her "Mountain Man Look" and sometimes asked what happened to her "Guru accent". "Like a subway map."

"A subway map?" Nicole glanced away from the road at Erin. She sensed her look even though she couldn't see it.

Erin stretched the dough between her hands. "A subway map. A colorful one. Full of hundreds of different lines going in all directions."

"You lost me. Not that you really had me, but I'm really lost."

"Each line is a different person. They start in all these different places but they all end up in one place. Like Penn Station."

Nicole glanced at Erin. "Did you just take your meds?"

Her sister chuckled. "I don't know where you hid them," she admitted. "But that's what's happening here. Everything is coming to a head."

"That's what she said," Nicole muttered.

"All points are intersecting," Erin corrected herself with a chuckle. "We just have to see what direction it goes in and how many lines continue."

Nicole snorted. "Very dark," she commented. "But alright, Guru Erin." Her step-sister flipped her off. "Do you want lunch?"

"Taco Bell?" she asked hopefully and Nicole rolled her eyes.


	13. Puzzle

**I know the last few chapters I said I'd only add more chapters if I got reviews, but I've decided that I don't care as much. It'd be nice, but at this point I'm writing this because I enjoy it. **

**In addition to this, I'm currently working on another story so when the thread dies down a bit, I'll work on that. Just so you know (if anyone even reads this thing) if I stop updating for a while.**

**~DC**

* * *

Maggie found out later that the two symbionts had tried to poison them as well. They had disregarded the data given to them and brought back things like rat poison, petrol, antifreeze, and mothballs. When the big guy in charge, Megatron, had found out, to say that he was _displeased_ would be a massive understatement.

Sulky by their dressing-down and still angry at all humans for the death of a fellow symbiont, they had tried to exact their own revenge. Thundercracker told her in a whisper quiet even to her that Megatron had ripped their legs off in rage. The big mech that had pulled them away from Katie and Maggie, Soundwave, was _still_ fixing them.

By no means was Maggie stupid. She knew that this meant that Megatron was angrier than anything. They would have to tread lightly around him. But he seemed to want them alive for something. She hoped that it would be enough to keep them alive for a little longer and give them some leeway if they tried to escape or contact the Autobots.

As Katie and Maggie got ready to leave for their supply run, Thundercracker stopped them. "Be careful," he murmured to them quietly. "Motormaster doesn't take well to humans," he explained when Maggie looked at him in surprise. "As for the rest, at the best they're indifferent, at the worst they're mean."

Four of the Stunticons approached and Thundercracker stood, backing away. "They're not going in _me_," one of them insisted. He was bouncing from foot to foot as if it pained him to stand still. "So many sensitive panels there? No. Nope. There's too much damage they can do."

"Well they can't ride in _me_," a bright yellow one said, crossing his arms over his chest or trying to. The structures in his mouth like teeth flashed as he grinned aggressively. "Especially not the gimpy one. Too much pressure for those organic bones of hers."

A third one, this one red, sighed. "I will take them," he said and oddly enough, reminded Maggie of Eeyore. "Since no one else is willing."

"I can take them," the fourth one whined.

The bright yellow one snorted. "You're as likely to kill them as I am. The gimpy one at least."

"Motor-head can't take them either," the twitchy one said. "And Megatron would have our spark casings if _either_ of them were hurt. More." He amended with a quick glance at Katie.

The one who agreed to be their driver folded into his alternate form, a red Camaro with an off-center yellow racing stripe over his hood. "The gimpy one should sit on the driver side. Her arm is less likely to bump something that would hurt her more."

Maggie nudged Katie gently toward the driver side. After a quick glance at her, the injured woman nodded and let Maggie help her to the door. To their surprise, it popped open politely enough. The other Stunticons continued to talk above them.

"Why do _we_ have to take them, anyway?" Maggie thought this was the yellow one again. She helped Katie to buckle herself in and listened, aware that Thundercracker was still watching.

Another one snorted. "Who knows?"

"Because they'll die if we don't get them fuel," one of the others sneered.

Their ride groaned and sank on his tires. "Everything dies at some point."

"Aren't _you_ just a ray of sunshine?" Maggie murmured quietly to him as she got in the passenger's seat. Again, she was reminded of Eeyore. "What's your name?"

"Dead End," the red Camaro moaned. Everything he said was said in that same morose tone. "Because that's all life is. You live until you die. It's always a dead end."

Maggie pressed her lips together. "But that's the _point_ of life," she told him in exasperation. It wasn't lost to her how odd it was that she was trying to cheer up a _Decepticon_. "You have to make use of what time you _do_ have."

He didn't seem convinced and they tell into silence as the Stunticons that would accompany them transformed and fell into line. Dead End was shuffled behind the twitchy one and the big black and red one that hadn't spoken. The bright yellow Stunticon that had insisted they wouldn't fit in his cab was left behind to stand near but not next to Thundercracker. By the way Katie's eyes flashed away and then to Maggie's, she could tell that the vet saw it too.

_Well,_ Maggie mused to herself. _When you're deaf and work with large animals, you need to pay attention to the nuances._ How many times had Katie likely known to back off based on little cues in body language? Without her implants, she must be judging everything based on what she sees and taking cues from Maggie. She couldn't imagine life like that.

Never once did Maggie think that Katie had an inherent disadvantage at life. She didn't think of her deafness as a handicap that held her back but more as a quirk. Hadn't Katie already proved herself with the fawn? She functioned so well that if it wasn't for slight "accent" and Bluestreak's scans that she wouldn't have known otherwise.

Bluestreak. The thought of the young mech was like ice water in her veins. Was he okay? She thought back to the hazy night when they had been attacked and kidnapped. Thundercracker or Skywarp or even, perhaps, both of them, had been there. So had Barricade and a much shyer, much more subdued Frenzy. He had likely remembered the damage that Maggie had helped inflict to him.

There had been another mech, a big black and purple one that had whaled on poor Blue. She remembered that as they were dragged away by clawed avian hands. Had Thundercracker been the one to grab them?

Bluestreak had _screamed_ as the ground fell away from her but whether because she was being taken away from him or in pain from the attack by the bigger mech. She thought that she had as well.

There had been another mech. A sleek black one with red details. He had a woman with him as well. Black hair had framed a face curled in hate. A gun was in her hand and Maggie had tried to scream that it wouldn't work against the Decepticons but she watched the woman stand down the big angry Decepticon and fire with the self-assurance you only saw in action movies.

And then the Decepticon stopped his rampage, screaming and clawing at his face. The woman had turned to Frenzy but the little thing was already scurrying away toward Barricade.

That wasn't right. She remembered concrete dust and terrifying claustrophobia. She remembered Katie being hit so hard that she went flying and the impact of her body hitting the ground breaking her implants or perhaps ripping them off her skull.

It seemed that Dead End wasn't up for conversation anymore so Maggie focused inward as Katie seemed to be doing. What happened? Every time she thought she got it, the truth skipped away or what she remembered conflicted.

The exercise left Maggie agitated but looking over at her friend, she realized that Katie was calm. Very calm. She exuded a zen-like peace that was at such odds to their situation.

Now was not the time to ask. Putting the thought in the back of her mind, she settled back in her seat and watched the desert whip by.

* * *

Katie watched Maggie become more and more agitated. Whatever was on her mind was bothering her. Katie was in the same boat but she didn't let it show. She remained calm and cool, seated in the driver's seat of the red and black car whose name she didn't know.

It bothered her. Of course it did. But showing it gave their captors satisfaction and she refused to give them that.

She thought back to their kidnapping, not knowing that Maggie was doing the same.

They had been in the car - Bluestreak. The three of them were driving to one of the malls or maybe a salon to get their nails done or for a quick spa night. Near a construction site on the edge of the expanding mall, they had been attacked. The world exploded around them to the sound of screaming jets and Bluestreak had told them to run and hide. To lose themselves in the hordes of stampeding people.

The screaming had been shrill and stabbed at Katie's skull like ice picks. She fumbled to turn down her implants and clung to Maggie's arm so they wouldn't be separated. Them something hit her side, sending her flying into a wall. Her hand, on her implants, had ripped them from her skull. Though her breath wheezed and the other person wrenched along with her scrambled to their feet, so panicked that he didn't even notice that he was doing more damage to himself and her by moving as he did, kicked her implants away. They weren't far and she lunged for them, gasping in pain.

Then Maggie was there, hauling her to her feet and accidentally stepping on them. Bless her heart, the woman noticed and though they were a lost cause, scooped them up and shoved them in her purse or maybe a pocket before dragging Katie away.

Maggie had abruptly changed directions and Katie may have cried out as her arm was wrenched but she moved after her friend, stumbling over broken chunks of concrete and plaster. There was a woman ahead of them, black curls bobbing around her brown face and almond-shaped eyes. She was leading them somewhere and a gun was in her hand.

The woman stopped and stared upwards. Then turning, she shoved Maggie and Katie out of the way as rubble fell from the ceiling.

There was a hole in the rubble that fell around them, large enough for them to see out and maybe just large enough for them to wiggle out. Maggie went first then helped Katie through. The woman appeared again and stood over them while they caught their breath and coughed out the cement dust coating their mouths and throats. As calm as if she had done this every day, she put another magazine in her gun and cocked it.

Here things began to get fuzzy for Katie. She _thought_ that she had been hit again, which would explain her temporary amnesia. Maybe she was concussed. Who knows?

At her best guess, a big black and purple mech nearly the size of Optimus Prime broke through the half-finished building in front of them. Seeing them, his optics narrowed at them and an ugly grin broke out across his face. Lowering his head and shoulders, he charged at them like a bull.

Unbidden, her mind had gone to Rudolph, the elderly bull at her practice that those monsters had killed. Liz had been the one to call him Rudolph because when they first met him, his nose had been covered in and dripping blood. He had been so very sick.

Rage had burned like fire in her gut, chasing away her icy fear. Maggie had grabbed her and yanked her away but the woman with black curls and hate-filled eyes had stood her ground. She raised her rifle and shot almost as soon as it was level.

Maggie had dragged her around the corner as the big mechanoid screamed in rage and pain and clutched his face. Her friend was saying something to her, probably forgetting that Katie's ears were destroyed.

After that, she didn't know. She didn't remember anything until when she woke up in the cell with Maggie. Even those memories were hazy. She thought seriously about the implication of her lack of memory and wondered what _more_ damage had been done to her. Selfishly she wondered if she could bear to have _another_ handicap.

She swallowed hard when the Decepticon they rode in rattled over a pothole. Instead of crying out or tearing up, she swallowed her pain and fed her rage and hate. These _monsters_ had already done so much damage...she knew that their leader, the one on whose orders they were kept, had killed Jazz. Their fight had destroyed so many buildings and destroyed so many lives in the battle of Mission City. Some of it had hit close to home for her.

Then there was the matter of her house and practice. There was Liz and Big Bertha the parrot and Rudolph the Old Bull, Bluestreak's fawn and the abscessed cow she had treated the day her practice was attacked.

But there was also Thundercracker, who was nice to them, who seemed honestly remorseful for her pain and suffering. Who had made the extra effort of attempting to communicate with her instead of relying on Maggie and her pad of paper. When she was attacked by the two symbionts, he had reached out to her meaning to make sure she was okay and had looked so distraught when she had instead reacted in pain.

Surely her hate for everything with red optics and a purple insignia shouldn't encompass him?

For the rest of the ride, she chewed on that thought.

* * *

"_Remember what we told you,_" that high screeching voice had told him. He did, mostly because of the voice. It reminded him of a screw in a drying machine or maybe of bad brakes on a car that screeched when your foot hit the pedal.

Squaring his shoulders, he got out of his truck and walked into the base.

* * *

"What if they're not using her to use _us_?" Lennox asked and everyone in the meeting turned to him. From the beginning of the meeting he had leaned back in his chair and had seemed to be chewing on a thought. The humans were all perched on the command staff's conference table, lined up in a panel behind a desk of their own size.

Keller, who had looked concerned for Maggie (who he knew) and worried for Katie (who he had never met) but still seemed as unruffled as ever, looked startled as if he hadn't even considered it. "What else is there?" He blinked owlishly. "Not, you know, discounting her, but why _her_?"

"Well no offense to Maggie, but she's only an aide." Lennox explained. "They might not understand how close you two are because their own interactions tend to be more...violent. They don't understand human relationships." Everyone around him nodded in agreement, some more reluctant than others. "_Katie_, though, has more ties than just the aide to the Secretary of Defense." He tapped the table with a finger, loud in the suddenly-quiet room. "Remember, they don't understand human interaction and relationships except what they read on the Internet and even then they may not do their research."

Prime rumbled. "They'll only see what they want to see in the information," he agreed though he still sounded reluctant. "Or what they believe they could use from it."

"What are you saying?" Keller asked. His eyes were sharp but not angry at Lennox. He sensed that there was something that he didn't like.

Lennox spread his hands on the table. "The day she disappeared, we found out that her father is a high-ranking general. General Aldrin Keynes." Keller sucked in a breath and then let it out with deliberate slowness. If he hadn't been approved by the US Government to liaise with the Autobots, he wouldn't recognize the name.

"He has access to a lot," Keller breathed. "You haven't confirmed him as a liaison but he still has a lot of ties with the government and the Army. They could really cause havoc if they could manipulate him."

Ironhide rumbled, shifting his great bulk. "Aren't there contingency plans for things like this?"

With a sigh, Keller ran a hand over his face. "There are psych evals you need to go through," he admitted. "General Keynes would have gone through them as well."

"So we know that they'll probably use her against the general," Lennox said, rubbing his hands together. The callouses on his hands rasped as they rubbed together. "But for what? How?"

Prime sighed, sounding annoyed and reluctant. "That we can't tell until we hear from either of them."

"I don't think we can even really do anything," Keller said after a moment of thought. "If we remove all his power, they may just kill them." He sighed, sounding as annoyed as Prime and rubbed a hand over his face. "We'll monitor him and what he does until Katie is returned."

As ever, Ironhide said the thing on everyone's mind that they themselves didn't want to say. "Are we even sure they're still alive?"

There was silence in the meeting room, broken only by the sound of the humans breathing and the gentle rumble of the Autobots' systems. "The authorities didn't find their bodies in the rubble," Epps said, peeking in the file folder in front of him. "So they just _took_ them."

"As Captain Lennox pointed out, they don't understand humans," Ratchet said, speaking for the first time since the meeting started. Like Lennox, he seemed to be chewing on an idea or maybe his own worry for Katie and Maggie. "We must be prepared for all possibilities for when we get them back." He cut a flinty look at Optimus beside him. "Don't think I missed you letting that Italian and the mechling go."

Lennox glanced at Optimus who gave them all a bland look. "What they choose to do with their time here is their business," he said with dignity. "It is the same choice I gave to Jazz and to all of you."

"It's going to get them killed," Ironhide grumbled.

"I don't think so," Lennox shot back and his guardian looked honestly surprised that he was the first to disagree with him. "Look. This is what we know, what little we _do_ know about Armonie." He lifted a finger. "Her family was _massacred_ by the Decepticons so she has a huge chip in her shoulder for them." Keller winced beside him and he saw Optimus give the Autobot equivalent. He lifted another finger. "Then in her words, she _massacred_ them right back."

Ironhide grumbled. "So she _says_," he said in an overly-patient way. "I don't believe her."

"She's hiding something, yes," Lennox admitted. "But I think it's more that she's hiding some_one_. You're right, she and Hot Rod couldn't do it alone. I'm not saying that I don't think that she could destroy a Cybertronian. I think that her...maternal fury...let her do that. She's leaving something out, not telling us the whole story, but she got her revenge and avenged her family." He made a fist. "And she's dead set on getting these girls back."

Keller shifted. "Some_one_?" he echoed.

"She told me that she uses upgraded bullets in what I can only assume in almost-standard human guns. Who does that for her? I don't think Hot Rod could. I doubt she could either." Lennox rubbed his chin.

Beside him, Epps sat up straighter. "Her phone. She was messaging someone and if you don't have certain upgrades that you get as a part of this base, you don't get _any_ reception out here."

"So you're saying that she's in contact with someone...who may or may not be an Autobot that you're not aware is here?" Keller asked at last into the still room.

Lennox made a face. "When you put it that way…"

The meeting room was silent and still again.

* * *

"Officer Evans."

"Please put Officer Kent on the phone," the man on the other end of the line said gruffly.

For a moment she couldn't believe it. "So you called _my_ phone for _Kent_?"

Her partner glanced at her, lips twitching. "I won't ask again," the man on the other end snapped. "I was told to call this number, I had not realized that his _secretary _would answer."

Eyes dancing with unvoiced amusement, her partner plucked the phone from her hands. "Officer Kent," he answered smoothly. Shamelessly, she leaned over so she could hear both sides of the conversation. He turned the volume up on the phone and held it between them but didn't put it on speaker in case the man could tell the difference.

"I have important information regarding a missing persons' case," the man grumbled. "You'd think you'd be more appreciative."

"We are," Kent said smoothly. She glared daggers at him and he winked at her. "That was my partner you spoke to, the officer in charge of the investigation. Is there a reason you requested me?"

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. "They put a _woman_ in charge?"

Kent put a hand over her mouth before she could say anything. She was too furious to say anything anyway. The hard light in Kent's eyes told her that he no longer found it amusing. "She has a lot more seniority than I do. May I ask what information you have? You said it was important."

The man grunted and seemed reluctant. "It's about Katheryne. Keynes. Katheryne Keynes."

Despite her misgivings about the man, Evans sat up straighter and slapped Kent's hand away. She bit her lip to keep herself from saying anything. He poked at her lip, worried that she would bite through it and annoyed, Evans slapped his hand away.

"May I ask your name?" Kent asked in that coaxing, soothing way of his.

The man hesitated again. "I'm just a concerned citizen." Kent and Evans glanced at each other. "Look at her roommate. He has something to do with it. Why she's missing."

"She hasn't been reported missing," Kent told him gently. "We'll make a note of your information, but right now we can't do anything. It's not technically our investigation either."

"Why not?" the man demanded. "How is it not your investigation?"

Kent shrugged even though the man couldn't see. "I cannot say," he said apologetically. "But I will be sure to pass on your information."

The man chewed on it. "Katheryne is missing," he said at last, with an annoyed huff. "I know she is. And that..._man_, J, has something to do with it."

"Do you know his name?"

Silence. "Jazz. His name is Jazz." Then the line went dead.

Kent and Evans glanced at each other. "His voice sounded familiar," Evans said, taking her phone back. "Where have I heard it before?"

"The father. General Keynes," he said at last. "I'm pretty sure it was him. Absolutely sure." He amended when Evans glanced at him. "Why did he want to be anonymous?"

"Why did he want us going after the roommate?" she shot back. "Jazz, was it? What kind of name is Jazz?"

Kent ran his tongue along his teeth, looking like he was tossing his guesses around his mouth to break it down before answering. Ultimately he didn't and Evans didn't press him as he put the car into gear and began to drive. "I have a hunch," he said instead. "Let's swing by that restaurant."

Unnecessarily, Evans looked up the address in the file in her lap even though Kent had memorized it and the route to get there. It was only a few minutes' drive away and they drove around it a few times to look it over.

It was the only restaurant in a small row of shops, all of which were permanently closed. Not that the restaurant was open or looking anywhere _near_ opening judging by the way that paper covered the windows and doors out front and the lack of a sign in front. Despite that, there were cars out back that put Evans and Kent on edge.

Kent grunted when Evans slapped his arm. "Look."

He had already noticed the silver Pontiac and he frowned. "I don't like the look of this."

"Who else is there?" Evans was asking, peering out the window as they swung by a last time. Kent was already looking for a place to park so they could get out. "A blue Mustang, a _Ferrari!_ And is that a _Lamborghini_?" She glanced at Kent. "What are we getting into?"

Kent grunted and slammed the car in park, a lot rougher with the motion than he normally was. His blue-grey eyes were as close to angry as she had ever seen him. And she had seen him very close to angry.

Leaning over, Evans put a hand on his arm, ignoring the little shock from his annoyance. He glanced at her, immediately remorseful. "Do you _know_ them?"

He sighed. "Unfortunately," he said. His tone spoke volumes. "And now I'm going to beat the shit out of those assholes."

Evans scrambled out of the car. "Like _hell_ you're leaving me behind," she hissed and the car door closed sullenly. Kent glared at her. She flipped him off and started walking in the direction of the restaurant.

When they turned the corner to the parking lot behind the restaurant, a small group of people waited for them. A woman with beautiful black curls leaned against the Ferrari, wearing clothes that covered her arms and legs despite the humid summer heat. The only sign she was affected was in the light shine of moisture along her hairline.

Beside her was a teenager with spiky platinum-blonde hair. He stuck to her side but his fair skin was at such odds with her olive-colored skin that she guessed that he wasn't her son by blood. By the way he stuck close to her, he saw her as a maternal figure at the least.

Standing by the Pontiac Solstice, that had become part of the bane of her existence, was who she _hoped_ was "J". He wore a button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and long jeans and if he hadn't been causing her and Kent so much trouble, she would've swooned at his easy grin and dancing grey eyes.

"Jazz," Kent said frostily, back rigid. "Do you know how many calls we've been getting from you?" It was a bluff but it was more the idea and the annoyance of it that mattered, really.

The man, Jazz, merely winked at her and turned his grin into a smirk at Kent. "About what?"

"Katheryne Keynes," Evans said, cutting off whatever biting remark Kent had. He glared at her but she ignored it. She knew he wasn't really mad at her, just mad at Jazz. Or J. Whatever the hell he called himself.

The man's grin disappeared and his eyes turned hard. "Has someone been telling you that I have something to do with it?"

"'It' being her disappearance or the attack on her house and practice?" Jazz wanted to know, voice tight. All traces of easiness were gone. The teenager sidled up closer to the woman though he didn't look afraid. He had an odd sort of blank look on his face.

Evans tilted her head to the side. "Either. Both. Because something tells me that you do but not in the way that most people expect."

Beside her, Kent stiffened even more if it was possible. His fists clenched on his belt until it creaked. "Evans." He murmured quietly.

"It's hot out here," the woman said suddenly in a strong Italian accent, breaking the tension in the humid air around the parking lot. Evans glanced at her but she still seemed well enough at ease. "Let's continue this discussion inside."

Evans glanced at Kent whose jaw was clenched so tightly that she was afraid his teeth would snap (if he had any). Then he relaxed minutely and nodded at her, once. She walked past the tense Jazz who had also relaxed minutely and followed the Italian woman and the black-faced teenager into the restaurant.

There were two others in the kitchen of the restaurant. As expected, it was clean and shone bright silver with new chrome appliances everywhere, as if it hadn't yet opened. Since it had only been a day or so since it was leased, it was to be expected. Draped over the prep table that had been temporarily placed at the center of the kitchen was a large atlas opened to a page of California and Nevada.

The first to look up was a young adult, looking just out of his teenage years. Evans guessed that he would be in his first year or so of college. He glanced at them with a slight annoyed look but it softened slightly.

In contrast, the other man seemed completely absorbed in the map and the markings done in red and blue ink. Unlike everyone else who looked relatively normal, this last man sported a crazy hairdo of a patchwork of rainbow colors that extended down even to his close-cropped beard and moustache. She tried not to laugh.

"You look ridiculous," Kent snapped, sounding angry and annoyed. Though she had never thought of him as so, he acted like a toddler throwing a tantrum that was angry at everyone around him.

The man with the rainbow hair glanced up and grinned, one eye bright blue and the other dark brown. Evans mused to herself that he looked as eccentric as his smile indicated. There was something there, though, that told her that it wasn't all joy behind those odd eyes.

"So you've decided on this, then?" the Italian woman said. She sounded almost amused.

The rainbow man's lips twitched. "I like it," he said.

"It doesn't blend in well," the blank-faced teenager said. He stuck to the Italian's side like glue but Evans noticed that he didn't actually touch her. He contoured his body around hers and peered around her shoulders like a shy child. She also noted that he stood well-braced with his hands free in case of trouble.

The Italian woman turned to Evans and Kent. "I am Armonie. This is Folgore - sorry, Hot Rod." She jerked her chin at the blank-faced teen. "Just came from Italy with Saetta." She nodded at the rainbow man whose eyes went hard and cold.

Evans glanced at Kent who radiated frustration beside her. She nudged him with her elbow and received a glare like an angry cat in return. The other brunette at the table glanced at Kent then over to Evans. "I'm Bluestreak." Then his mouth clamped shut and he went back to tracing a circle drawn on the map. Armonie edged over to him, Hot Rod hovering over her like a shadow. She rested a hand on his arm and Bluestreak wavered.

Then she turned to the last man. "You know me. I'm Jazz." His eyes hardened and his jaw clenched. "Katie's roommate and guardian."

She pursed her lips and she felt rather than saw Kent open his mouth. He stopped when she looked at him. With a frustrated huff, he closed his mouth. "A lot about this case doesn't make sense," she told them candidly. She heard Kent's hands tighten on his belt, the synthetic creak of the leather. "I'm a little concerned to see you all involved in this."

"My family was murdered in Italy," Armonie said, the tiniest of wavers in her voice. Her eyes, when Evans looked into them, they were dark pools of onyx. Gone was the almost friendly glint, replaced with something dark and ugly. Something that had ruined joy for her and was probably the reason that Hot Rod clung to her like a shadow. "I killed them back. Don't worry," she added almost darkly. "They weren't human."

"They were the Combaticons," Hot Rod said over Armonie's shoulder. "We killed them all."

Armonie continued seamlessly. "Almost as soon as we got here, we were caught up in the attack that took Katie and Maggie."

"Maggie?" Evans echoed. "We only knew that Katheryne Keynes was missing."

Bluestreak nodded. "Maggie was with her. I was - _am_ \- her guardian." Evans glanced at him then back at Armonie.

"We're trying to get them back." Jazz finished. He walked around the table to stand across from them. "The Autobots can't or won't. They're stuck. But we can't just deal with that. We made a promise to them and we failed them the first time. We won't fail them again."

Evans crossed her arms over her chest, feeling her badge oddly cold against her wrist. "Don't tell me you believe this," Kent hissed.

They didn't even pretend the rest couldn't hear them. It didn't matter anyway. "You believe it more than I do. We can't be much more help, but we can give a few facets to the human side of it."

Kent grabbed her arm, almost tight enough to bruise and she sucked in a surprised breath. Apologetically, he released the pressure. "We can't just divulge secrets like that."

"You want to do this as much as I do, stop trying to deny it. Call it in." Kent wavered but went. Evans turned to the rest of them who watched in interest. "He doesn't like to break rules. But you know that, don't you?" All except Armonie and Hot Rod nodded, smirks stretching across their faces.

Armonie's eyes were direct but there was more life in them than earlier when she spoke of her dead family. It was the same look that Kent got when they hunted down a case.

"Yes," Evans said in response to her unspoken statement. "We're in." She extended her hand to them and Armonie grasped it. In the back of her mind, she registered the gun callouses on the woman's hand. "That's Prowl. I'm Evans. Jordan Evans."

* * *

**Sorry for the slow build, guys. There are more characters involved in different ways than the original story. I promise some exciting things should be happening soon.**

**Cheers!**

**~DC**


	14. Angel

It wasn't unusual to find her sister staring off into the distance with an odd look on her face, but something about this particular time stuck out for Nicole. Erin was in her usual posture, curled into the window frame with her legs tucked under her. Unlike her usual, however, her head wasn't leaning against the frame with her cheek pressed against the window. Now she stared out as if she could still see with her blind, milky eyes. The bright sunlight highlighted the ugly scarring on her face and she winced.

"Stop wincing about it," Erin said without turning. Nicole stepped forward and curled into a matching pose across from her. What looked all of her modeling clay and Play-Doh was mixed in front of her into a rough cube shape the size of both of her fists.

Nicole sighed. "You know you'll never get your perfect colors back from that."

"I don't need or want perfect colors," Erin pointed out. "I can't see them." Nicole winced again. "Stop doing that. Wincing. It's not your fault."

Her sister shifted, looking over the blind teen in front of her. By now most of her scars had faded but as ever, she refused to put the vitamin E oils her mom gave her on the ugly wounds so they were still stark white against her tan skin. The scar from the surgery on her broken collarbone peeked out from beneath her rumpled blouse and the road burn scars looked like rumble strips down her thigh and legs.

As if sensing her sister's stare, Erin tugged the hem of her skirt down to try and hide it. "Can we go to the store and get more clay?"

"That not enough for you?" Nicole asked, pointing at the lumpy cube that was already beginning to collapse under its own weight.

Erin glanced down at it with one milky eye as if she could see it. "No." She said simply. "It's not right."

Nicole reached for it and this time Erin winced. "It never is. What's wrong?"

The younger teen gently lifted the cube out of Nicole's hands, cupping them almost reverently around the cube that was starting to look more like a shapeless blob of mixed and rainbowed colors. "I need more clay. Better clay."

"For what?" Nicole was used to Erin's eccentricities by now, especially the tics she developed after the incident that had so scarred her. This was a little strange even for her.

Erin groped around for the little tupperware she kept her clays and Play-Doh and squished it all inside. "This is too soft. It doesn't hold the shape."

"What's wrong? Really?" Nicole asked after a while, watching Erin scoop some out and put in another tupperware container. "You're not acting like yourself."

It took her a long time to answer but Nicole waited her out. Erin always answered her questions though sometimes it took a while. The longest had been a wait of almost a week but that had been because Erin had been in the hospital.

"My skin itches," Erin said at last. "The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. Something is about to happen."

Nicole glanced outside, in the direction that Erin's blind, milky eyes were looking. "Well, Izzy is about to get his ass kicked by that alley cat. Can you see it?"

The younger teen's lips twitched. "I'm sure. I can hear it and I can imagine it." Nicole looked at her sister again. There was something else in those blind eyes, something that sent a small shiver through Nicole. Erin had always seemed older than her years but now she seemed ancient.

"But that's not it," Nicole guessed.

"But that's not it," Erin agreed. She turned from the window and for the first time in a long time since her eyes had been burned, Nicole shivered. "I'll tell you when you tell me."

Nicole narrowed her eyes. "You already know," she accused.

"I may, but knowing is different than hearing it for yourself," Erin said sagely. "But I won't begrudge you your secrets." She smirked suddenly but just as quickly it faded. "Can we go to the craft store now?"

Seeing that she wouldn't get much more out of Erin, Nicole stood to get her things. By the time she was ready, Erin was standing by the door, wearing her dark glasses to hide her eerie milky eyes. She had groped around in the entry closet until she had found and unfolded her cane. They left to the sounds of an angry cat and a distressed dog.

* * *

Maggie wasn't sure if she should be concerned at how good at shoplifting Katie was. It seemed like one moment she was squinting at a little tube of ibuprofen and then it was gone without so much as a rattle. Only there was an empty niche in the shelf where it had been. Seeing that her friend was fine, Maggie focused on the limited selection of soup and food that wasn't a bag of chips or pretzels.

She glanced at the attendant who was fanning himself lazily in the sticky heat of the day. For all his laziness though, she had to wonder if he wasn't sharper than he appeared. But then, this _was_ a lonely gas station in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest town. There were a few other buildings nearby, an old and run-down diner, a bar that had seen better days, but the gas station was the liveliest, if you could call it that.

The last car she had seen had been almost twenty minutes ago.

Did it even matter to this sunburnt, overweight man that they might be stealing his goods? Maggie waved to get Katie's attention and gestured to the front. The vet glanced at the doughy, sweaty man, and then back at Maggie. Her friend looked like she had taken a novel of information from that very brief glance but without her ears, without being able to speak verbally or with her hands even if the man could understand, she could do nothing but nod and let her friend walk over to the attendant.

They would never know what she would say and if it would work better than whatever Maggie did.

* * *

Jazz cocked his head to the side and a minute later, Bluestreak tucked his chin to his chest. Used to these odd quirks, Jordan and Armonie paused in their discussion and turned to them.

Bluestreak returned to himself first. His eyes shone brilliant blue, as if his Autobot nature had leaked through to his holoform projection. "Got a hit on Maggie's cell phone." The two humans grinned wolfishly. It was unsettling how alike they were. Bluestreak made another marking on the map. "Maggie's phone turned on ten minutes ago at this location."

It was a good distance from the last markers. "What is there? And why would it turn on there but not in the last location?" Armonie asked.

Jordan drummed her fingers on her belt. "Must be a gas station or something there. Her phone probably died after they were kidnapped."

Whatever conference Jazz was having evidently finished and he slammed a fist into the table. Jordan's hand immediately went to her gun and Armonie had slid into a defensive crouch, a few charms of her subspace bracelet tucked into her palm. Prowl jumped, skittish for just a moment, before settling; Hot Rod outright disappeared for a moment before winking back into existence.

Jazz smiled at the apologetically but it wavered a little on his holographic face. "General Keynes is trying to submit evidence that the Autobots are threats to the government. The base is on lockdown." They read a lot from that simple statement.

They were _definitely_ on their own.

"That means that they will be on the lookout for us," Armonie said, her accent thickening slightly. Her eyes were narrowed and thoughtful.

Prowl tilted his head to the side. "They're sending out a call to all squad cars to be on the lookout for a silver Pontiac solstice." He nodded pointedly at Jazz. "That was all the information we had on that case, I believe."

"The Ridgeline, too," Jordan reminded him. "Blue. 2007."

"It's back at the base," Jazz said, flapping his hand dismissively.

Armonie pinched Saetta's hand and he obediently moved it away from the atlas which she began to close briskly. "Regardless, this means that we need to move, ducklings," she told them. "Jordan, do you have a change of clothes or will you continue as law enforcement?"

The woman glanced down at her clothes. "You'll need a police officer to deal with the gas station attendant. After that I'll change."

"Let's move, then," Hot Rod murmured.

Jazz nodded. "Scan a new alternate form or change your coloring," Jordan suggested, taking off her jacket and rolling it and her gear into a little ball. She undid her hair and ran her fingers through it. "It'll throw everyone off. You have the coordinates?" This was directed at the Autobots who all nodded. "Meet there. All take different routes, but stay in contact. If you spot a tail, notify everyone."

The Autobots save for Hot Rod nodded and winked out. Prowl's holoform rippled and changed. Now he was dressed like he was out on a casual date. With a smirk, he offered his arm to Jordan who, with a laugh, looped her free arm through his. They gestured for Armonie and Hot Rod to leave first and stayed in the empty kitchen for a few minutes.

"Are we doing the right thing?" Prowl asked, leaning down slightly to nudge his cheek against her head. Outside, Jazz was waiting with the keys to lock the restaurant up.

Jordan led them in the opposite direction of where Prowl parked, already knowing that he had moved. While none of them thought that they were being watched just yet, it didn't hurt to be cautious. "You know we are," Jordan told him, leaning her head against his shoulder like they were on a date. "You know exactly how they feel. What's wrong?"

At the nearest crosswalk, Prowl nudged his nose into her hair. "I'm scared of losing you again," he whispered where nobody but her could hear. "I almost did once. Would you expect me to go through that again?"

Placing a fond smile on her face - it wasn't that hard, really - she leaned over to kiss his cheek. The few other people on the street rolled their eyes or looked away as she intended. "But you want to put _Jazz_ and _Bluestreak _through that?"

As she expected, Prowl's hand tightened slightly on her arm. She knew that Prowl was analytical and precise, that his movements and reactions in his holoform were deliberate. It was an acknowledgement of her point disguised as an unintentional tic.

The light turned and Prowl tugged her gently toward a rather nondescript car. She tucked herself into the passenger seat and Prowl closed the door gently behind her. Soon they were racing off down the street.

* * *

No one was a tailed to the gas station. Perhaps it was too early into their hunt but they knew better than to let it make them complacent. Jordan changed quickly in the parking spot Prowl chose, tucked against the side and away from the security cameras.

She knew that Bluestreak or Jazz, or perhaps even both, were already seeing if they could get the footage. One glance told her that it was probably a very archaic system. VHS tapes, most likely.

Ready, she nodded briskly to Prowl who sent a ripple of light over her clothes until they were the right color for the area. He changed the name on her pocket to DOE with a slight tic of the corner of his mouth. "Guess my name is Jane, now," she murmured quietly. A few more ripples of light and her hair was lighter, shorter, her eyes bluer, skin lighter. Unrecognizable and clothes made to look like an interstate police officer's uniform, she swaggered into the little shop, Prowl in similar pose and garb behind her.

A kaleidoscope of emotions rolled over the sweaty, doughy face of the man behind the counter. Surprise, fear, annoyance, then acceptance. Nervously, he wiped the sweat off his face with a sweaty sleeve as the tiny fan behind the counter rattled as it tried to move the still air in the store.

"Can I help you officers?"

"You reported a theft," Prowl said in an oddly molasses sort of way, a far cry from his usual clipped speech. They were different people, now, on this hunt. It still unsettled Jordan but she buried it beneath her best lazy cop persona.

The man glanced between the two of them, more sweat that had nothing to do with the heat popping up on his face. He wiped his face with his sleeve again. "Yeah. Two girls was in here. The quiet one nabbed a lot of pills I think. Didn't see them leaving except I didn't see her put them back."

Tucking her thumbs in her belt, Jordan leaned on one leg. "That doesn't mean a theft," she pointed out. "And you wouldn't call for something as small as that."

Behind the counter, the man shifted again. His eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you," he said, licking his lips. "The loud one asked me to charge her phone just a bit so she could call her friends to let them know she'll be late. We have a pay phone out back," he added quickly. "But the phone's been down since last year. So I plugged it in. Then she was just gone. Didn't come back."

Jordan crossed her arms over her chest. "You have the phone then?"

It was passed over quickly, with some fumbling. "I thought she was just filling up her car but then I looked and she was gone." As he handed it over, Jordan noticed that the cloth around his neck was stretched slightly, almost unnoticeable with its drenching of sweat from the arid heat of the desert.

And, she would bet, a healthy dose of fear.

She didn't need to signal Prowl, knowing that he saw it as well. "You have security cameras in here?"

Licking his lips again and glancing at him with barely-concealed fear. He nodded so hard that sweat flew from his floppy hair and Jordan was concerned he'd hurt himself. The door buzzed and Armonie and Hot Rod wandered in. After the briefest of glances at them, they headed toward the back where the refrigerated drinks were.

"Don't worry," Jordan said, tucking the phone in her pocket and leaning with one elbow against the counter. "We're just talking. Friendly like."

Mirroring her pose, Prowl slid a picture across the counter toward the clerk. Jordan recognized the picture from the file they had on Katheryne. What she didn't recognize was the blonde in the other picture but she guessed it was Maggie. She'd bet her badge that it was another picture that Prowl covered with a thin hologram similar to the way he worked her clothes. "Was it these two?"

The man only glanced down for a brief moment before nodding quickly. "Yeah. Them." He pointed to Katheryne's photo. "She didn't say anything. Not a word. _Her_, though, she chatted away."

"Do you know where they're going?" Jordan asked as she glanced at Armonie and Hot Rod. They looked like a mother and teenager on a break from a long trip. With an American accent that she didn't know the Italian could pull off, she argued with Hot Rod that no, he _couldn't_ drive and _no_, she would get apple chips, not potato chips.

Nervously, the man's eyes flicked between the two of them, to Hot Rod and Armonie, then back to the two officers. He licked his lips, a nervous tic she was sure was from his already hectic day. "She left the first time and then…" He took a deep, shaky breath. "Then someone just..._appeared_. He took all the surveillance stuff."

Prowl and Jordan glanced at each other. She leaned over the counter and the man flinched. The cameras and monitors were trashed, a perfect imprint of a hand on the metal casing telling her more than she wanted to know. "What did he look like?"

"Red," the man whispered, eyes wet. He gulped. "He had red eyes."

* * *

They drove twenty minutes down the road and found an empty parking lot. A few shaded picnic tables were tucked away in a corner. Jordan borrowed a pair of shorts from Armonie and came out in her undershirt in time for Armonie to fuss over her her with sunscreen.

"Red eyes," Jordan said as she applied sunscreen so Armonie would leave her alone. "He was very clear. A man _appeared_ after Maggie and Katheryne left the store with _red_ eyes and destroyed the surveillance equipment."

Prowl grunted. "It was archaic anyway," he muttered. "VHS tapes that only worked half the time. Most of the cameras were cardboard. But we got a positive ID that it _was_ Margaret and Katheryne."

Across the picnic table, Jazz sighed gustily. If they didn't understand, they'd call it impatient, annoyed. "Does he know where they went?"

Armonie dug in her pockets and placed a bottle of eerily yellow soda on the table. "I got this at the gas station."

"I don't like pineapple," Jordan muttered. "It's all yours."

The Italian smirked. "Fake pineapple is gross," she agreed. "But that's not why I got this." She pulled a folded slip of paper from her pocket and opened it to show everyone. In awkward, clumsy handwriting were the words PINEAPPLE PRINCESS. "It was tucked partially under the label."

"It's written by someone's non-dominant hand," Prowl noted, tracing a fingertip over the crooked S at the end.

Jordan grunted. "The guy at the gas station said that aside from us, there were only three other people."

"This is from Maggie's notepad," Bluestreak noted. "But it's not her handwriting."

"The attendant said that Katie had a hurt arm on the right side," Jordan murmured. "She was the only one that was long enough out of his view that she could have done that. And Maggie spent most of the time talking to the attendant."

Jazz leaned forward. "She's injured?"

Lips tight, Jordan nodded. "The attendant said that she was covered in bruises and dust, more so than Maggie. He thought it was a domestic disturbance, that's why he didn't approach them. Didn't want to get involved." Rubbing the last of the sunscreen into her neck, she sighed. "He said that she was limping, that's one of the reasons he didn't try to report all the painkillers she stole. Her arm was in a sling but there were no straps that he could see."

"She was wearing a suit that was a little too small on her. He said her shoulders didn't match up with the seams," Prowl added. "Her pants were too short and he could see her socks." Jordan flipped through the notebook, squinting against the bright sunlight. She accepted the sunglasses Prowl held out for her without looking up.

"He made particular note of them because he only saw two people around three cars. Normally he hears them pull up because of all that gravel. Sometimes only a few get out to go into the store while the rest wait outside but he heard nothing. No one talking or walking around. The cars didn't go for gas. No other doors opening and closing. The two of them just walked in and then walked out."

Bluestreak leaned closer, eyes flashing. "A supply run."

"Humans need to eat," Armonie murmured. She accessed her subspace bracelet and pulled out a few granola bars. One she offered to Jordan who accepted with a nod of thanks. "But why them?"

Saetta hummed, drawing attention to himself for the first time. "If we don't make alarms to remind us, we probably wouldn't remember to feed you," he pointed out. "I doubt the Decepticons would care enough to do that. What better way to feed prisoners than to make them to feed and take care of themselves?"

A dark look crossed Armonie's face but she said nothing. "Do we know where they went? What direction at least?"

Armonie pulled the atlas out of her subspace and laid it out on the table. Saetta leaned over and marked their position with a star. "I talked to the diner. They said there were three cars, all looking similar. One was black, one was red with a racing stripe, one was white and blue."

"There aren't many ground-based Decepticons," Bluestreak murmured. "But the thought that they're traveling in a group, is indicative of who they probably are."

The Autobots winced or growled as per their natures. "Stunticons," Saetta spat. His eyes glowed with rage.

Armonie muttered something in Italian that didn't require translation. "What do you think they want with them?" Jordan asked tensely.

"Back to the subject at hand, _where are they going_?" Prowl asked.

Leaning over, Bluestreak marked the location of the gas station with an X and then an arrow in the direction that Jordan indicated. "We're at least headed in the right direction."

"So you're saying that we don't have anything more, then?" Jazz growled.

Jordan frowned. "We know they're alive, though injured." She pointed out. "We know what direction they're headed and that the Decepticons want them alive enough that they're willing to risk discovery to feed them and get them supplies."

That made Bluestreak and Jazz offered her pinched looks but they didn't disagree.

"Can we scan for bases? Groups of you mechanoids have to send off _some_ kind of physical sign, right?" The last word was directed at Armonie who was staring off into the distance.

Saetta's lips twitched. "I'm not sure I like being called 'you mechanoids'," he said but she sounded amused. "We can obscure ourselves from scans as much as we want, but we still physically emit thermals susceptible to outside scans." He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. "I wouldn't know where to start," he said with a sigh. "It's a big desert out here and we only know the direction she left in. We don't know the distance they traveled or where they may have left the road."

"The trail is cold by...I'd say about two, three hours?" Prowl murmured thoughtfully.

Bluestreak snorted. "They're long gone by now. I have no skill in tracking. Even in an organic and dust-ridden planet like this."

With a grunt, Armonie stood. "He knows," she said, flicking her fingers at the dusty Jeep in the corner of the lot. "If he doesn't, he can definitely help us."

Looking over, they realized that Hot Rod had already drifted over to the vehicle. The Ferrari nudged the rear bumper, hard. In a normal human Ferrari, the bumper would be crumpled. Hot Rod showed no damage other than the minute transfer of more dust.

"It's you," the Jeep said, sounding disoriented. "Folgore. No, Hot Rod, right?" A pause. "And there's that little lady of yours. Hello, Army."

Armonie smiled. "Hello, Hound. Am I right?"

The gravel rasped beneath his tires as Hound backed out of his stall and rolled over. "I'm sorry, little lady," he said as he settled at the end of the line of cars in the lot. "I wasn't paying much attention until Hot Rod nudged me. The base is on lockdown so I've been lying low here."

"No one wonders how she knows he was there?" Jordan asked, sounding amused.

Hot Rod's holoform rippled. "Does it matter? It's a skill she developed because it was needed."

"I am intrigued as well but I am fine with not knowing," Hound said agreeably. He activated his holoform, a rather pudgy-looking hiker. His newness on Earth was reflected in the clothing choice and the otherness in his eyes. "May I join you?"

Jordan and Prowl moved over and he slid into the emptied space. Introductions were shared and good and bad news. Armonie turned out to be right.

"I _was_ curious when I sensed three mechanoids drive by," Hound admitted. "It was very suspicious because those not at the base were told to lay low." He rubbed his chin in an approximately human gesture. It needed work but they didn't have the heart to tell him yet. It was still passable. "So I followed them a ways. I didn't recognize their signatures."

Jazz leaned forward. "How did they not pick you up on those scanners?"

This made Hound smirk. "Out here in the desert, it's hard to pick up heat signatures, especially when it's this warm."

Armonie huffed a laugh, plucking at her long sleeves. "Don't I know it," she said. "Continue."

That made the new Autobot smile and wink at her. "I followed them to what looked like their base. As soon as I could, I got out of there. I had Seekers incoming."

"We need more intel," Jordan grunted. "We can't barge in without more numbers."

The table cracked beneath Jazz's fist. "So we can do nothing?"

Armonie leaned over and put a hand on his fist. Beside her, Hot Rod shifted, eyes flicking back and forth between Armonie, Jazz, and Bluestreak who looked just as furious as Jazz. "Right now, no. We must be patient."

"They're not _dead_," Bluestreak hissed but looked immediately remorseful.

The woman flinched. "No," she agreed after a very brief and awkward pause. "No they're not, but you won't do them any good rushing in without knowing all the facts."

"They want them alive for the general." Hot Rod murmured. "If we barge in, they may be killed accidentally. We have to proceed with caution." Armonie nudged his shoulder gently with hers. "It won't do any of us any good if we let them know that we're hunting them."

With a frustrated growl, Jazz disengaged his holoform. Bluestreak looked away and Armonie knew she made her point. She leaned back and discussed more human things with Jordan.

* * *

"I know who you are," he whispered as he bowed in the shadow of the creature before him. "I bow before you."

The screechy, raspy voice that answered sent shivers down his spine. "Who am I then, _human_?"

Aldrin pressed his forehead deeper into the hot sand, relishing the burning tingle and the feel of the sun beating down on the back of his neck. "You are the archangel Michael, the messenger of God."

The angel's footsteps rasped on the and as he circled Aldrin's prone form in a few massive steps. He laughed in that grating voice and Aldrin shivered again, a cold tingle of fear running down his spine. But it was normal to fear such an angel, who is the Lord's messenger.

"I have done as the Lord commands," Aldrin said when the angel remained silent. "Will my daughter's soul be saved?"

Gabriel chuckled. "Such love for such a sinner."

"How can I help but love her?" Aldrin wanted to know, pressing his face further into the sand. He knew that the true form of angels would blind the unworthy and while doubt was a sin, he had not been told he was worthy. "My own daughter, my own flesh and blood? If I could save her soul from eternal damnation, I would."

The angel walked away and then approached again, like he was pacing. "Such _faith_," he said with odd emphasis but Aldrin knew that it wasn't his place to question the will of the Lord and His angels. "But no, I have come to tell you that there is more that you must do."

"Ask and I shall obey the will of the Lord Almighty," Aldrin murmured, feeling his lips brush the sand beneath them. The angel did and then flew away with a sound that reminded him of jet engines. Or, perhaps, the screaming of lost souls.

He looked up, blinking his eyes in the bright light of the blinding sun. Tears streamed down his face and he told himself that it was from the sun, not from what the angel asked him to do.

* * *

**The dog in the first scene with Erin and Nicole is Izzy, Erin's service dog. I'm not sure if he's going to show up again. Not sure that anyone cares.**

**Also, I'm not sure anyone reads this, but I'll be delayed in my updates for most of June. I have another project that came up and I'm going to focus on that until it's done. It'll go by faster if ya'll help though ;P **

**(Just kidding, my beta reader's on it. He's awesome like that)**


	15. Snapshots

**I'm back guys!**

**It was great to see an email every once in a while to remind me that people still read this. Thank you for that!**

**Originally I had written this chapter without the intention of posting it; it was supposed to be a sort of "warm-up" chapter that would remind me where I left off when I put this on the side. As with most of my writing, it quickly gained a life of its own and I _had_ to share. **

**Thanks again for all your support! I'll hopefully be able to get back to a more regular schedule of posting this!**

**~DC**

* * *

Thundercracker was staring; Katie could feel his scarlet optics lingering on her arm and the wince she failed to hide as she walked toward him. He was strangely kind for being part of an "evil" race of giant robots. Katie wondered if his conscience hurt him.

_Come inside_, Thundercracker signed to her; his mouthplates moved so she thought that he said the same to Maggie though what she had to say Katie wasn't sure. It was hard enough to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

Maggie must have seen a grimace of pain on her face despite her attempts at hiding it and flounced in front of her. _Pain_? She tried to sign with both hands juggling stolen items. Maggie pressed a bottle of ibuprofen into her hands pointedly.

Once inside, Thundercracker carefully picked them up and carried them with surprising gentility to their enclosure. In her world of silence and throbbing pain, Katie let herself fall into a meditative state, something she had often practiced with her cousins. With detached interest, Katie watched as Maggie soundlessly argued with Thundercracker, occasionally spilling items which the woman then picked up and very meticulously placed in a neat row on the ground.

_We all need order in our lives,_ her cousin's voice whispered in her head from what seemed like a lifetime ago. _Each in our own way, there must be _some_ form of order. That's why it's so hard to fight off mental pain; it's right there where we can't quite reach it_.

Katie wished she had listened more to her cousin, who seemed strangely wise beyond her years. Instead, she imagined what she thought the teenager would think of Jazz and his love of cooking. In her world of silence and pain, Katie let herself _imagine_ and the agony of her dislocated shoulder and her gnawing hunger subsided until it simply didn't register to her waking mind.

Detached and in the world of her waking dreams, Katie watched the world slip by like a video on fast-forward and waited.

* * *

Katie seemed asleep, locked in some sort of guru trance that Maggie couldn't wave her out of. The bottle of ibuprofen lay clutched limply in Katie's good hand and with a sigh Maggie carefully freed it from its phalangeal prison, ignoring her unease at how Katie's fingers felt loose and waxy.

But Katie was still breathing and her eyes were still blinking, even if they looked a bit unfocused. "Wish I could do that," she muttered without heat. She couldn't begrudge Katie her coping, even if it meant that she herself was left out of sorts.

Thundercracker didn't comment though Maggie could tell that he wanted to. Pity; she wanted something to bring back the anger, just the tiniest thing to banish the cold-oily feeling of fear churning in her stomach and traveling along her spine. But her mental well-being was not Thundercracker's concern, only her physical and their jailer didn't speak unless it was necessary.

Maggie thought that boredom would kill her before the Decepticons could. She saw Katie pocket a book from the convenience store and kicked herself for not thinking of it, even if it was one of those stupid romance novels filled with too-perfect drivel. _Anything_ to stop the boredom.

Briefly, she thought about asking Thundercracker for an e-reader the way Bluestreak or the Autobots would do for her sometimes, but brushed it off. The _Decepticons_ were unlikely to give something so precious to their captives to save them from their boredom.

In her periphery, she saw and felt Thundercracker crouch on the other side of their prison door to be more at their level. If it was for their benefit or to keep a better eye on them, Maggie couldn't tell and didn't feel like talking.

Desperate for _anything_ to alleviate the boredom, Maggie looked around their sparse cell and saw the book tucked against Katie's injured arm and sighed. Even if she had _wanted_ to borrow it, she couldn't now, especially since moving it would jostle the dislocated, possibly broken shoulder. There was no helping it, then.

"_100 bottles of rum on the wall, 100 bottles of rum_," Thundercracker turned his head minutely to look at her, seemingly curious about the song. If only he knew… "_Take one down, pass it around, 99 bottles of rum on the wall._"

* * *

It was dark by the time Katie "woke" from her meditation, sliding back into her own skin bit by bit to keep from screaming at the return of her pain. An opened can of soup was in front of her, what was revealed to be a plastic spork sticking out of the mess in an attempt at inviting her to eat.

Her stomach groaned in agreement and she fed herself clumsily with her one good hand, careful not to jostle her bad arm too much.

There was a pain pill in the soup, nearly dissolved enough to let the liquid in the capsule out. Making a face, Katie fished it out with her spork and flicked it into a forgotten corner where Maggie wouldn't notice until later. She continued to eat, looking out for more pills that her well-meaning friend may have tried to sneak her. If there was more, she didn't see them in the gloom and didn't feel them as she passed all of the lumps in the soup over her palate to make sure she wasn't eating another.

When she was done, she was far from fully satisfied, but they needed to ration their food carefully. Who knew when they would be allowed to go out and get more?

Beyond the shimmering barrier of their jail, she could see the hulking form of Thundercracker. His optics seemed as if they were powered off, as she couldn't see the twin red glows through the ceiling, but that was hardly an issue. They couldn't get very far, considering they were in the middle of the desert, much less because she was so injured.

More importantly, _there was a man in the cell with them_. She startled, hissing when the move jostled her arm. The man, appearing as if lit from beneath his skin, signed, _I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you_.

Katie squinted at him and saw that he seemed closer to a video game character, all rough edges and smoothed-over detail than human with faults and imperfections. Somehow, seeing that Thundercracker had developed a human holoform made her feel better and she knew that after this was over, she would have to take a long, hard look at her life and choices.

_It's Thundercracker_, the blobby human signed.

_Yes,_ she said awkwardly with her left hand. _I thought so._

The awkward features tried an approximation of a smile but it made him look constipated. Katie tried not to laugh and for a moment wondered why she felt so safe with Thundercracker even though she knew that he was only there to keep them alive so the Decepticons could kill them once their plans were complete.

_Show me?_ Thundercracker signed and the smile that Katie gave was surprisingly genuine. The constipated look shifted until it gave a passable approximation of a smile. _It seems strange how much you humans show with your face. I'm afraid I'm not quite used to it._

Katie was stuck, unsure how to respond with her arm in a sling. Did she finger-spell? She wasn't that practiced with her left hand and it would take much longer than she would like to say a simple sentence.

_I was thinking,_ Thundercracker signed, his holoform's face making a cartoonish face of sympathy. A portion of his holoform split off like glowing dust motes and settled in front of Katie, coalescing into a flat panel; another piece shaped itself into a planchette by her left hand. Squinting down at the panel as it finished forming, she realized it was a speech board. _I found information on a "communication board" on your human Internet. They are used for people having difficulty communicating._

Seeing the speech board brought back strange memories and feelings, but she buried them. The planchette was weightless in her hand, being made up of light being controlled by Thundercracker based on her movements. _I-K-N-O-W_, she spelled quickly to test Thundercracker's reading speed, excited as well to finally be able to communicate. _I-USED-1-BEFORE_.

As she had expected, Thundercracker didn't seem to have an issue understanding her, even if she didn't use the space square between her words. _Is this sufficient for communication?_ He asked.

_I-T-W-I-L-L-D-O_, Katie said, gleefully swinging the planchette across the glowing board. _W-H-Y-D-O-Y-O-U-W-A-N-T-2-T-A-L-K-2-M-E-?_

In a very birdlike motion, Thundercracker's holoform cocked its head to the side. _Forgive me if it is an inappropriate question, but why do you not use "textspeech"? Would it not be easier?_

Katie toyed with the weightless planchette in her hand. _M-E-M-O-R-I-E-S-O-F-W-H-E-N-I-B-E-C-A-M-E-D-E-A-F_ she said simply.

The holoform stared with a blank expression and Katie couldn't tell what exactly Thundercracker was thinking of. Perhaps it was best not to know, as she suspected that he was thinking of a hundred different things at once. _I want to talk to you because you have not had the chance to speak your mind._

Katie thought that was a subtle dig at Maggie's argumentative streak and she turned to look for her friend. Thundercracker helpfully pointed out the small lump that was Maggie sleeping fitfully.

When Thundercracker had her attention again, he said, _You both had a long day and I suspect that your pain drained your energy as well._

She tried not to slump at that. _A-L-I-T-T-L-E_, she conceded. _W-H-A-T-D-O-Y-O-U-T-H-I-N-K-I-H-A-V-E-T-O-S-A-Y-?_

Thundercracker gave a Cybertronian version of a shrug, a strange movement along the face and eyes, requiring such great control over the facial muscles that a human would find it extremely difficult to replicate. It reminded her in a way that Jazz's holoform didn't that Thundercracker wasn't human. _I thought I would make the offer._

Katie frowned down at the planchette in her hands, wishing that it was hefty enough for her to spin it, that she could have something to prove that it was really there in her hands. The holoform in front of her guttered like a fitful flame, further reminder that Thundercracker was really sitting on her left, through crude metal bars, stone, and concrete, that he loomed over their enclosure even crouched as he was.

She placed the planchette back on the speech board decisively; the holoform stared blankly at her. _D-O-E-S-Y-O-U-R-C-O-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E-B-O-T-H-E-R-Y-O-U-?_

There was a rattle and a shift of metal against stone as Thundercracker's physical body shifted. _I don't _have_ a conscience_, Thundercracker signed back after a long pause.

_E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E D-O-E-S_, Katie replied slower, taking the time to separate her words for emphasis. _A-L-L S-E-N-T-I-E-N-T B-E-I-N-G-S H-A-V-E A C-O-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E_.

Thundercracker shook his head in both forms. Something in Katie hurt that she was causing him such distress for even if he was their jailer, he was _kind_ to them, or at least far kinder than was expected. _Human sentiment._

_D-O Y-O-U H-A-V-E A S-O-U-L-_? Katie asked. The question brought up, unbidden, thoughts of long talks with Jazz late into the night.

They would curl up on the couch around of mugs of steaming tea. Though he couldn't drink it, he would create one to practice blending in. Those days, before the Autobots, his holoform was damaged from whatever disqualified him from his kind's war and would occasionally fizzle or flare. It was something easily explained away during the daytime when it was sunny but in the evenings it was harder. Fortunately Katie had never been one for going out after dark anyway and so resulted in their evenings "in" to avoid drawing undue attention to Jazz's holoform and the deaf vet that owned a Pontiac Solstice.

Thinking of Jazz caused a pang of pain in her chest. Was he okay? Was he injured? Killed? What about Henry-Bluestreak, who had screamed in anguish when they were whisked away by their captors?

No. She gave herself a firm mental shake. Thinking about Jazz was a weakness that she couldn't afford right then. Right now, she needed to nurture the seed of doubt she had planted in poor Thundercracker. Right now, she needed to focus on surviving.

She steeled her resolve. Though she may deny it, she was the daughter of a _general_; she had fire in her blood and steel in her bones. Her chin tipped up and she met Thundercracker's optics challengingly through the force field over their cage.

_Our concept of a soul is different than your primitive belief,_ Thundercracker's holoform signed, waving to get her attention. It was strange to think that she was looking at the same being whether she looked at the glowing man-shape sitting in front of her or the looming mass of armor and wires beyond their cage. He was trying for lofty assurance but it didn't convey in his holoform. If he was human, she thought that he would seem unsure, though it was difficult to tell with a Cybertronian unused to human expression.

Before he could continue, she was spelling out, _I-T-S I-N-T-E-R-N-A-L. Y-O-U C-A-L-L I-T A S-P-A-R-K. W-H-A-T D-O-E-S T-H-E N-A-M-E M-A-T-T-E-R-? I-T-S T-H-E S-A-M-E._

_It's __not_, Thundercracker insisted, waving to get her attention. _It's __not__. Don't anthropomorphize me._

Katie knew she was getting under his skin, to use a human phrase. It didn't bring her as much pleasure as it should and she only felt like a bully, but she pushed on. _P-A-N-S-E-R-B-J-O-R-N-E A-N-D D-A-E-M-O-N-S. T-W-O N-A-M-E-S F-O-R T-H-E S-A-M-E T-H-I-N-G._

The Decepticon cocked both heads to the side and a heartbeat later signed, _armored bears?_

Pulling the novel she stole from the convenience store caused a flare of pain in her shoulder. So did flinging the paperback novel through the bars to Thundercracker's real feet. The holoform glanced over even as the red optics left Katie's face to look at the small book. _P-A-N-S-E-R-B-J-O-R-N-E A-N-D D-A-E-M-O-N-S_, Katie repeated. _I A-M T-I-R-E-D. G-O-O-D-N-I-G-H-T_.

The holoform in front of her made the motions of a human sigh but if he followed through, she wasn't sure. It winked out and when it returned, it was standing - perhaps Thundercracker wasn't that adept at making it move, using joints and limbs that weren't as rigid as his. His holoform walked awkwardly (_pranced_ was a better word, probably the way he would walk on his triple-jointed legs on a human body) to a dark lump and lifted it, revealing it to be a blanket of decent quality and a few cushions.

He set this up next to Maggie and let Katie make her way over herself, not quite hovering over her. As soon as she stood, the speech board disappeared and she tried not to feel disappointed.

As she was laying down, he touched her arm lightly. Katie thought that she could feel the movement of every particle of light, a cool and shocking sensation over her dirty skin. _Goodnight, doctor._

She smiled at him and closed her eyes.

* * *

Jordan invited their new allies to her house, making the stipulation that Jazz at least change his alternate form, as the police were still looking for a Pontiac Solstice. She could tell that only some of the silver mech's groaning about choosing a _Toyota Yaris_ was fake. Personally, she thought that the blue suited him more than silver, but it was his choice to keep his alternate form if they got the girls back.

When. _When_ they got the girls back.

It had been a whole other fight for Army and Jordan to convince the Autobots to return to her home, if only to gather intel and create a plan of attack. She could sympathize; it felt too much like leaving the girls behind to die, but until they knew what they were up against, it would be a suicide mission.

As Jordan tilted the last of her beer down her throat, Armonie said, "I was thinking…" The woman twisted and paced in the kitchen, walking back and forth and all around, stirring sauces, flipping the eggplant on the stove. Hot Rod followed her like a shadow, somehow never once getting in her way. Meanwhile, Jordan's house smelled better than it had in _years_.

"What were you thinking?" Jordan asked, tossing her bottle in the recycling bin with a clatter of glass. Jazz and Bluestreak glanced at the bin but didn't comment.

The Italian woman checked the oven, clicking her tongue at something and muttering to Hot Rod in Italian. As she closed the door, she glanced at Jordan. "Why would they capture two girls?"

"They're Autobot pets," Jazz said as if it were obvious. "Um...no offense."

Armonie tilted her head toward him. "I know how they think. We are...ah...vermin to them. Insects. Something far below them. No, why would they _capture_ and not _kill outright_?"

A shudder rippled through the holoforms and Hot Rod pressed closer to Armonie's elbow. Without looking back, she reached an arm out and stroked the back of his neck soothingly. "Maggie is the assistant to the Secretary of Defense," Bluestreak offered hesitantly.

"That wouldn't be it," Prowl replied. "They don't trust each other and that expectation rubs off on everyone else. In their mind, Keller's already chosen a new aide."

Jazz frowned, fussing with the leftover herbs from Armonie's roast. "Katie's father is a general," he told them slowly. "The day they disappeared, he was being interviewed for the position of liaison between the human government and the Autobots."

"The Decepticons were never very good at holding prisoners," Armonie said. Her tone implied that she knew this personally; no one dared ask and Hot Rod edged closer to her left shoulder. She nudged a bowl of eggplant pulp out into the middle of the kitchen island and set out pita chips. "_Baba ghanoush_," she said even though nobody asked and Jordan didn't reach out to eat any.

Jordan took another beer from the refrigerator, opening it and ignoring Prowl's disapproving frown. "So they're using Katie as leverage...what does that make Maggie?"

"Collateral damage," Armonie said, opening the oven and walking away. Hot Rod pulled out the roasting pan and placed it on the stove. "They probably took her because she was there and her death would bring you pain." Bluestreak snarled and Armonie's eyes went cold, warning him back. The gunner looked away. "If she is the assistant of the Secretary of Defense as you say, then they may think that changes in regime may affect the working of the human government."

Saetta looked up from where he was tinkering on the dining room table. "Destabilization," he offered. "Would you like me to fix your coffee machine, too, Jordan?"

"There's nothing wrong with my coffee machine," Jordan said. "Don't try to 'fix' anything else." The rainbow-haired man looked put-out, thrusting his bottom lip forward like a petulant child. Wordlessly, Jordan pointed with her beer to the toaster that had burned and shredded the bread she had put in it. The grill wires, broken and reshaped during Saetta's exploration of the appliance, protruded from the open slits like jagged teeth.

Armonie murmured something to him in Italian and Saetta slumped a little but returned to tinkering with Jordan's gun. Because somehow that was safer and after seeing Armonie take religious care of her own weapons, Jordan trusted her judgment. It made Prowl grind his holoform's teeth in vexation and Jordan tried not to laugh around her beer. "If we assume that's what they're after," Jordan said slowly, swallowing her beer. "Then what kind of time scale are they on?"

"We know they're trying to turn the American government against the Autobots," Armonie said. "They have, to an extent, succeeded already in placing their base in lockdown. What further action waits to be seen."

Clenching his fists, Bluestreak grumbled under his false-breath. "We can't get in contact with them. All lines of communication are down."

From his seat at the table, Saetta grunted. "It doesn't matter, we already knew we were on our own," he said and cocked Jordan's gun. He slid it toward her across the table. "Give me your wrist."

Taking another swing from her beer, Jordan sat at the table across from him, careful of the toaster. Sensing her shadow, the teeth of its broken grill wires snapped shut like hungry jaws. The two of them talked in quiet tones as Jazz picked up the toaster and threw it out the window.

"Start packing," Prowl said abruptly to Jordan, placing an ice-cold hand on her shoulder. "We need to leave."

Hot Rod tensed, moving closer to Armonie who did not seem to mind his hovering. "What's wrong?" the blank-faced holoform asked. Armonie split off from him, digging in Jordan's cupboards for tupperware.

Seeing the look on Prowl's face, Jordan leapt to her feet. "Bluestreak, there's a closet in the basement with camping gear. Be a dear and fetch that for me." Her gentle words were offset by her hard eyes and the authoritative voice of a veteran police officer. She gestured to Saetta. "Clean up as fast as possible, dismantle anything you've worked on or destroy it outright, especially that damn toaster." Saetta waved a vague salute and began putting his tools away quickly. "Army, let Jazz do that; I need your help upstairs." The woman nodded and with her holoform shadow, they both took the stairs by twos.

Army was able to quickly show Jordan how to place the bags of packed clothes and supplies into her subspace bracelet before they both clattered down the steps. They tucked the camping gear Bluestreak brought upstairs into their subspace bracelets before digging through Jordan's cupboards for non-perishables to take along.

Though her eyes and face had gone into war-mode, Armonie could still joke, "All that effort for a good home-cooked meal and now we'll have to spill it on nice leather interiors."

Prowl and Hot Rod's heads whipped to them and with a high laugh that was at such odds with her dead eyes, Armonie subspaced the food. "Let's get out of here."

"The human government has decided that Jordan and I are disposable," Prowl rumbled from his physical body, an undertone like grinding gears in his words; he was furious. Jordan paused before getting in the car, looking back at her house and wondering if she had forgotten anything. Through the windows, she could see Saetta bustling around. "We need to go," he told her quietly, gently.

With a last look at her house, she tucked herself in the car and knew as she did so that she was declaring herself a traitor in the eyes of the government. But what were petty words to someone like her?

"They're sending squad cars from another precinct," Prowl said over their shared comm, playing it on his radio for Jordan as they drove down the roads.

"_Concerned about friends of yours letting you escape?_" Armonie asked from where she was in Hot Rod's cabin.

Jordan was glad that the area she lived in had such long driveways; very few people saw them driving down the road. If they didn't see anything out of place (except for a small caravan), they wouldn't remember much if asked later. _Don't look out of place_, she had always been told. _Act like you're meant to be there, like everything is normal._ With Prowl's warning, she guessed that they had far more time than would be expected so they worked hard to make best use of that time.

By the time the squad that had been sent to collect her appeared at her house, they were well into the desert.

* * *

"I don't have much news," Hound told them apologetically when they reached the campsite. "I have a few good leads, but I'm not sure which may be their base."

Armonie and Jordan looked up from where they were setting up their tent. Prowl's headlights lit up the empty campgrounds nearby, chasing away the absolute darkness that threatened to swallow them up. At the nearby picnic table, Hot Rod was setting up dinner; Jazz and Bluestreak were coaxing a fire in the fire pit and trying to help Hot Rod reheat their meal.

"Whatever you have is helpful to us," Armonie assured him. Her mallet smacked the stake once more and she stood. With a flick of her wrist, the mallet was returned to subspace and she helped Jordan to chuck their sleeping pads and blankets into the open tent.

"Well," Hound said slowly as he settled himself on the bench near Hot Rod. "I originally found above five places that they could be and narrowed them down to three, mostly because it may give good cover to humans and Cybertronians, but it would be impractical for ground-based alternate forms."

Prowl's holoform spread out their atlas, opening it to the appropriate page for their region. He made notes of where they were camped, the Autobot base, and Jordan's house. "We don't yet know why," he explained to Hound when he made a curious noise. "But Jordan and my human disguise have been labeled as traitors."

"Well we know _why_ we're traitors," Jordan muttered, closing their tent. When Hound looked at her, she smirked. "We ran away from the law - _someone_ sent a squad from a different precinct to bring us in. That's why we're traitors."

Her partner made a face and she stuck her tongue out, sitting at the bench. Hot Rod wordlessly pushed her a plate of food and she tucked into it with a groan. "This was amazing, Armonie. When we're done here, can you live with me?"

Armonie laughed, high and bright as she sat across from the woman. "I guess I can be a kept woman again." The necklace holding the ashes of her husband and kids shone in the flickering lights of the blaze that Bluestreak and Jazz had created.

"Meatbags," Jazz teased, a wistful look in his holoform's grey-green eyes.

Prowl coughed delicately, turning off his headlights as Jordan turned on the camping lantern. "You were saying, Hound?"

"Yes," the tracker said with an amused smile on his holoform's face. "I've narrowed it down to two based off their location in relation to the rest stop." He pointed to the two options, making his own marks on the atlas at Jazz's nod. After a moment of hesitation, he also marked his other options.

Thoughtfully, Jordan nibbled on the tines of her plastic fork. "The next question is whether or not we think they'll stay there."

"We know that they're making the humans take care of themselves," Armonie added. "So they have to know by now that the desert isn't always the best to keep us. It of course, depends on where they may be stationed."

Saetta tugged his colorful beard thoughtfully. "Logistically, it would be a nightmare," he said. "I can't imagine that Megatron is _only_ using ground-based Decepticons, so there _must_ be at least some of his army also there."

"I would imagine that Soundwave and his symbiotes are there, perhaps acting as guards," Prowl said as the humans ate. "Have they made planetfall?" When Bluestreak nodded, the continued. "But if they're sending the _humans_ instead of the symbiotes, I'm not quite sure what that may mean."

Armonie tapped on her plate decisively with her fork. "Let's focus first on what we _know_ before we make assumptions."

"The humans are injured and taking care of themselves," Jordan added around a mouthful of food. "We don't know if they were injured during their abduction or if they were injured later."

The Italian woman nodded. "We know they're somewhere in the desert and while we're not _entirely_ sure, we know that it's highly likely that they're using Katie to manipulate her father and discredit the Autobots."

Prowl gave a disgruntled grumble. "We know that my human alias and Jordan have been labelled traitors for running away from human law. They're revoking our badges and adding us to the Wanted List. They've frozen all of our assets; ID cards, credit and debit cards, bank accounts, everything."

When they glanced at Jordan, she shrugged. "It was inevitable," she said, sounding surprisingly nonchalant. "It's what I would do if I was on the other side."

"We saved a lot thanks to these subspace bracelets Saetta made," Armonie added, helping herself to seconds. "And we don't need much in the way of money, not with the supplies we have."

Jordan chuckled. "This sounds like the pilot episode of some stupid sitcom," she said. "Or like the adult, science-fiction version of _My Side of the Mountain_ in the Nevada desert."

"We're not in Nevada yet," Bluestreak said with a hollow chuckle.

Hound looked down at the map. "The problem is that the desert is a good place to hide. If they can find places that are shaded enough to keep humans without killing them. The heat disguises them from most thermal scans but we may be able to scan for them at night when everything cools off."

"We don't know how many there are," Jazz said reluctantly. "Just the Stunticons alone may be too much for us to handle at once."

Twisting her fingers in the chain of her necklace, Armonie shrugged. "The Decepticons are pretty disjointed," she said. "And they are pretty easy to separate."

"Once the gestalts are broken, they get angry," Hot Rod said in his hollow voice, his holoform's eyes glowing like a cat's in the gloom. "Angry people, human or Cybertronian, make mistakes. We just have to make sure that they are fatal ones."

Armonie grunted and threw away her plate, taking Jordan's as well when she indicated that she was finished. "I know you'll be figuring out patrols and watches, but _I_ at least want to be involved, and we need to keep moving camp so we're not caught."

"True," Prowl said. "But for right now, the humans need their rest. Let us worry about that tonight; we'll fill you in tomorrow morning."

Jordan gave a jaw-cracking yawn. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're right," she teased and Prowl scowled at her. "Come on, Army. Let's relish our last night to be human before we become robots." The Italian woman chuckled darkly and followed her to their tent.

The holoforms winked out of existence and two of them, Jazz and Prowl, peeled away in one direction; Saetta and Bluestreak went in another, leaving Hound and Hot Rod behind. Not that Hot Rod would leave her unless she asked him to. It was reassuring to know that he was nearby and she took a moment to walk over and press her hands to his warm hood. His engine gave a very quiet purr and she was nudged gently with his bumper.

Looking into the empty desert, she watched the heat ripples. There was a break in one, creating a strange distortion. If none of the Autobots had said anything, they didn't - or couldn't - "see" the distortion either; if they weren't dead, then either it was biding its time or didn't mean them harm. But Army hadn't survived the Combaticons by becoming complacent.

She adjusted the pistol at her belt, making sure it was loose in its holster. Let Hot Rod and the distortion see the motion. Beneath her free hand, she felt her companion tense minutely, understanding the action for what it was.

Boldly, she looked right at the distortion and made the universal (at least on Earth) sign for _I'm watching you_. Then she patted Hot Rod's hood and want back to the tent. Jordan saw her lay her rifle beside her sleeping area and placed a knife under her pillow; Armonie slept fully dressed to be better prepared for a potential nighttime attack. It had only taken losing all of her clothes and having to fight in clothes not at all suited for combat for her to develop the habit.

Watching Armonie get ready for bed, Jordan could tell that it was a silent warning; she readied her own upgraded guns and weapons before lying back down. Armonie closed her eyes and thought about her dead family; the small urns holding a pinch of their ashes were cold where they pressed against the hollow of her throat.

Her father had always said that their family had the fire of the desert in their blood. Their bloodlines stretched back to kings and princesses, warriors and assassins. No one in their family would ever be happy with a quiet life; most of them joined the military, worked as guards or bouncers. Some were athletes, having learned to channel the flames of the desert that ran in their blood into a competitive nature. Without fail, everyone in her family did anything they needed to in order to bring back the fire of adrenaline that was just beyond their reach.

Augustino had never understood her joy of fire and weapons, of futbol and MMA. He loved her all the same, her soothing-ocean-wave husband.

God, she missed him, like a piece of her had been burned to ashes with him in the _crematorio_. He was the moon to her sun, the waves to soothe the burning desert. She kissed the moon and then the two stars that bracketed it.

_I miss you every day,_ she thought to them so she wouldn't disturb Jordan's quiet slumber. _By doing this, by saving these girls, I can give someone the closure that I never had. I hope you understand._

Her dead family didn't answer her; she didn't expect them. Rolling on her side, she tucked the necklace under her blouse and moved her hands back to her weapons. Closing her eyes, she slipped into a light doze.

* * *

Despite what Armonie may have guessed, Jordan wasn't yet asleep; too many thoughts churned in her head. _What would mother say if she heard the news?_ She thought to herself, rubbing the use-worn holster holding her upgraded service weapon. _God, what would _father?

Thinking of her parents formed a lump in her throat. _I didn't get a chance to say goodbye_…

If Prowl was there, he would catch on to her dark thoughts and find a way to distract her from her melancholy thoughts and the ache deep in her heart for the burn of alcohol to sear it all away. That ache was a vestigial part of her misspent childhood where _forgetting_, silencing the wailing screams of her subconscious through sex, drugs, and alcohol. Unlike many who had traveled down that slope, she hadn't hit rock bottom but she had sensed it coming.

The drugs and sex were easy to quit; the alcohol, not so much. Perhaps she was just making excuses, but she wasn't _that bad_ with it; it's just that every once in awhile, she _needed_ the silence in her head or she would go mad.

Prowl knew; of course he did. He would sit beside her every time, his eyes sad but never judging as he watched her drink her pain away. One of the things she loved about him the most was simply the fact that he had never once suggested _alcoholism_, didn't pepper her house with flyers for AA or psychologists the way her holier-than-thou step-mother did on occasion when she could sneak over to her house.

To say that her and her father had _issues_ was an understatement. _Does _everyone_ have Daddy Issues?_ She had asked Prowl once when on her fifth drink one night.

Her partner, her lovely, perfect partner, had only shrugged. He hadn't commented on her inebriated state, hadn't laughed off what was probably, to him, an odd question. _Probably_.

_God_, she loved him; she hoped that he knew, somewhere deep within his advanced processor, just how much.

Rolling on her side, she scrubbed a hand over her face and closed her eyes. They had a long day tomorrow; she may as well get whatever rest she could.

* * *

**Personally, I'm kind of fascinated with Katie and Thundercracker's relationship and the "does your conscience hurt?" conversation was one of my favorite parts to write. I had to cut a lot of what I had wanted to say otherwise it would end up being a too dense portion. **

**Don't worry! They'll have another discussion about souls and consciences and _panserbjorn_ and _daemons_ again.**

**~DC**


	16. Panserbjorne

**Sorry for the delay; I was dealing with a few crises in my life. (My stupid cat managed to bring fleas into my apartment, so I've been cleaning like a madwoman to get rid of them. I hate her so much sometimes...)**

**Just a warning, this is a very dialogue-heavy one and took yet another surprising turn that I hadn't quite planned. Though this is keeping true to the original stories, it is also blending some of them together so that they wouldn't seem quite so random when new characters are introduced (Erin, Nicole, etc.). **

**Thank you to those who read and review! Your support is very encouraging. **

**~DC**

* * *

In her dreams, the small Decepticon that had broke her shoulder was back, holding her by her shoulders; the blue one was pressing Maggie's skull between his hands as she screamed and flailed, trying to escape the crushing pressure. It was the pain of her unconscious twitching that woke her.

Pushing herself into a sitting position, Katie found herself dripping with sweat. She gasped in her silent world, trying to get her breath back and get a grip on her pain. Her shoulder throbbed with each beat of her heart and she clenched her jaw and good hand.

A soft hand touched her leg and she started, jerking hard; she felt rather than heard the involuntary cry of pain she released at the motion. Hands pried open her left hand and pressed small stones in; pain pills. Katie flung them away and reached out with her left hand, hoping that Thundercracker would understand Through her tears of pain, she saw light coalesce in front of her into a weightless planchette of blue light and a speech board.

_N-O-N-O-N-O-N-O-N-O-N-O-N-O _she spelled, scrubbing the planchette between the letters emphatically. Being made of light, her hand at some point passed through both planchette and board and she scraped her knuckles painfully over the concrete of their prison.

Maggie grabbed her hand and entwined her fingers; Katie gripped it tightly, blood making their skin slide slickly against each other. She focused on her breathing.

From years ago, her cousin said, _sometimes deep breaths is all I can do to keep the pain away. It doesn't always help against the things that go bump in the night, but it does wonders for aches and scars._

Thinking back to the little brown-skinned girl, Katie felt annoyance. _What did _she _know about pain?_

_We watched our step-brother die,_ her pain-induced hallucination of her cousin's voice replied. _One moment he was there; the next he was flopping beneath the tires of a speeding car like a rag doll. I can still hear the sounds of his bones breaking and his flesh splitting beneath the tires; I can still smell the smoke and blood and fear and remember so clearly the color of the car. There's a _reason_ it's called a _terror attack, _Katie Cat_. Her hallucination seemed as unflappable as her real-life counterpart. _That's it, in through the nose, out through the mouth; deep breaths._

When her pain was more manageable, Katie cracked her eyes open. Maggie was tense, twisting her shoulder to get away from the pain of Katie clenching her fingers. It took some effort for Katie to release her clenched muscles, leaving her left arm feeling strangely weak. Thundercracker's awkward holoform was in front of them, visible from only the waist up. If Katie wasn't still in pain, she would have laughed; she apparently hadn't noticed that Thundercracker didn't seem to understand how humans sat and had only let his holoform's hips and torso rest on the ground.

_Be kind to the _panserbjorn, her hallucination murmured though it didn't elaborate. Katie hoped it left, passed with the pain as she took steadying breaths and reached for the planchette.

_S-O-R-R-Y_, she spelled slowly for Maggie who shook her head emphatically.

Thundercracker waved to get her attention. _She says that no apology is necessary, but she wants to know why you don't want painkillers._

It almost hurt to _think_, especially when she remembered how much pain had burst through her mind like rays of piercing light. But she didn't want to tell Thundercracker of her hopes, even if they were far-fetched. That she must be clear-headed for a rescue, that she couldn't believe that escaping alive would be _easy_.

_Tell them it was me,_ her hallucination said. _Tell him you're stronger than that, than the need for such petty coping mechanisms._

Briefly Katie wondered if her hallucination was only auditory because the cousin she imagined was there was blind. Maybe it was the logical part of her mind that was telling her that despite what she thought she heard, her cousin was not there.

_P-A-I-N-K-I-L-L-E-R-S M-A-K-E M-E F-E-E-L W-E-A-K_, she spelled out instead.

So very bird-like, Thundercracker cocked the head of his holoform. _Shouldn't they make you feel _strong? He signed back while his lips said something else. Though his holoform didn't look at Maggie, Thundercracker added, _But pain makes you weaker, she says_.

The Decepticon, surprisingly enough, seemed to sense how much she didn't want to talk about pain and weakness. Perhaps it was because she was deaf and therefore weaker than Maggie; let her show him!

_F-I-R-E_, she spelled, staring furiously at Thundercracker, daring him to comment. Perhaps he understood for he signed nothing back to her and if he said anything to Maggie, Katie couldn't see.

Maggie waved a hand at her and Katie glanced over. Her lips moved, too over-exaggerated for her to clearly make out all of the words or even the gist of her statement. _She wants to know if you are well_, Thundercracker said, surprisingly helpful.

_Y-E-S-Y-E-S-Y-E-S-Y-E-S-Y-E-S-Y-E-S,_ she assured him and through Thundercracker, Maggie. _N-O P-A-I-N P-I-L-L-S P-L-E-A-S-E._ She added.

This agitated her companion and she gesticulated wildly while she seemed to yell; Katie was distantly glad for being deaf so that she couldn't hear Maggie's thoughts on the matter. _She doesn't like that_, Thundercracker said simply.

_I thought s_o, Katie signed with her left hand. _T-I-M-E-?_ She spelled with the planchette.

Her hallucination said, _Of course that's the first thing you're worried about. _Maggie seemed to agree, throwing her hands into the air.

_Five of the clock in the morning_, Thundercracker said. So the darkness at the edge of her vision wasn't _entirely_ from pain but from the lingering night at the edges of their cell. Though why Thundercracker chose to use such an archaic phrase - to the point where he signed _five of my clock in morning_ instead of what was generally used.

It made Katie suspicious._ He's just being dramatic,_ her hallucination said. _I _like_ him_.

_You _would! She thought back to her hallucination, wishing she could slap her imagined-cousin.

_Now that's not nice,_ the hallucination said, somehow hearing and sounding far too amused.

_If I get out of this,_ Katie thought darkly to her imagination. _I will _kill_ you._

They both knew she wouldn't, but her hallucination didn't call her on that. When, the auditory hallucination said. When_ you get out of there; because you will, Katie Cat._ As surely as if she had seen her walk away, Katie knew that her hallucination was gone.

It disturbed her far more than she would like to admit, not only because it _felt so strongly_ like her cousin was there, but also because how much she _missed_ the hallucination when she left. She felt so lonely now.

_G-O B-A-C-K T-O S-L-E-E-P,_ Katie spelled on the planchette with a shaking hand. She pointed to Maggie with a _look_ at Thundercracker. His holoform's lips moved obligingly.

_She is saying a lot of profanity,_ Thundercracker said as Maggie gestured wildly. _She doesn't want to go to sleep without knowing you will sit here awake with me_.

Pain still swam in the back of her mind even though exhaustion still weighed on her eyes. _S-O-O-N_, she spelled and Thundercracker passed it on.

Perhaps it was her own exhaustion and worry, but Maggie subsided and went back to her thin pallet. Katie turned to Thundercracker's holoform. He was glancing over her shoulder at Maggie before turning to her. Slowly his holoform seemed to rise out of the ground, hips and legs and feet forming out of particles of light that shone like stars in the gloom of their cell. He stared at Katie's legs, how they bent and twisted over each other and slowly recreated it on his holoform. Disguise had come so naturally to Jazz that Katie hadn't had the chance to watch him do something similar. Watching Thundercracker try to mimic her was fascinating.

_I read your book_, he said, pulling the novel from subspace and placing it on the ground between them. The spine and cover were unbent and the pages still pressed together as they had been when packaged to be sent to the store. She had not expected him to read the actual book, knowing that there were copies where he could reach them. Still, it was almost surprising to her to see the pristine pages.

_L-I-K-E-?_ Katie asked.

Thundercracker hesitated. _I've read all of them._

_T-H-O-U-G-H-T-?_ She pressed. _S-O-U-L-?_

_I am not human; I do not have a soul, _Thundercracker said.

Katie shook her head, ignoring the ache it caused in her shoulder. _Y-O-U A-R-E N-O-T H-U-M-A-N,_ she spelled out slowly with the planchette. _B-U-T Y-O-U A-R-E B-E-C-O-M-I-N-G M-O-R-E L-I-K-E O-N-E._

For a long moment, Thundercracker's holoform remained still and silent as a statue and Katie resigned herself to returning to fitful slumber. _Let me treat your wounds_, Thundercracker said, pointing to her bloody knuckles.

Katie held out her hand challengingly, "dropping" the planchette. Her palms tingled when Thundercracker touched her and he had surprisingly gentle hands as he poured hydrogen peroxide over the wound and dabbed at it with a piece of gauze to make sure the dirt and grit from their cell's floor was out of the scrapes. Katie was crying by the time he was done and if he noticed, he mercifully didn't comment, wrapping her fingers with shocking gentility in bandages. As if fascinated by her joints, he gently bent each finger to make sure she still had some mobility.

_G-O-O-D A-T T-H-A-T_, Katie spelled when he released her hand. _H-O-W-S Y-O-U-R C-O-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E-?_

Though Thundercracker's facial expression didn't change, his shoulders became more rigid and out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Thundercracker's true form stiffen and bristle like an angry cat. The planchette and speech board disappeared; his holoform gave her a cold, red-eyed stare before disappearing as well.

Somehow, despite her nightmare and all of her remaining aches and pains, Katie felt worse for this. She slowly lay back down, shifting to find a comfortable position with her injuries. Sleep returned very slowly to her.

* * *

_When she dreamed, she was at her cousin's house. The living room felt strangely empty without her cousin's service dog, Izzy. Katie sat in surprising silence and she had to take a moment to check to see if she had her cochlears on or if even in her dreams she was deaf. _

"_You don't need your ears to hear me," her cousin said as if she could hear Katie's panicked thoughts, curling up on the couch. _

_Katie licked her dry lips. "Where are we?"_

_The visual part of her hallucination shrugged as if she didn't know or care. "Here, there, everywhere. Who knows?" Irrationally irritated even in her dream, Katie growled. "I can fix that arm...here at least. When you wake up, it'll go back to being broken."_

"_Who are you?" Katie demanded. "You're not my cousin." _

"_Obviously not," the girl said though Katie couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Milky eyes set in a face scarred by chemical burns rolled as if she could hear that thought as well. "I'm just a figment of your pain- and fear-filled imagination."_

_Hearing someone say what she thought out loud made the fire go out in her and she collapsed inward, sinking into the soft cushions with a sigh. "New couch?"_

"_Yeah, we just got it," the image of her cousin said, relaxing further on the matching loveseat. "Soft, right? Izzy hasn't had the chance to destroy it yet."_

_It felt so real that it made Katie's heart hurt and she couldn't speak for a while. "If I don't need ears to hear you, what do _you_ hear when I say anything?"_

"_Whatever you want to tell me," the hallucination replied. "Like you right now, I'm not hearing with my ears." She snapped her fingers quickly. "Right. Sorry. Later, you can ask me questions about this, but right now, I need to get on with business before you wake up."_

_Katie frowned, surprised. She opened her mouth to speak but her not-cousin held up a hand. _

"_Next time; I promise," she said apologetically. She clapped her hands once, decisively and the scenery changed. They still remained on the couches and Katie's makeshift sling disappeared along with her pain. "I'll take your pain away for now, just so you can get some restful sleep. Aside me from keeping you from natural sleep anyway." _

_Leaning forward over the abyss, Katie stared at the hallucination that so perfectly mimicked her cousin. "_Who are you?_"_

"_Not important," the girl said, waving off the question as if it were an annoying fly. "Now: regarding Thundercracker. Your talks about souls and consciences are getting to him more than he would like. If that's the course of action you would like to pursue, go on as you have."_

_Katie frowned. "What other choice do I have?"_

"_They intend to kill you," the blind girl said. "This you know and only by a slim margin will you and Maggie be rescued." Hearing it said out loud made her heart sink. "I see a lot of options before you. Much like a subway map, all sorts of paths meeting and intersecting and always changing."_

_The edges of her dream began to grow blurry and fade altogether. Her cousin's image glanced at them as if she could see it and with a wave of her hand, they were back in Katie and Maggie's prison, still curled up on their couches. She tugged her ear and suddenly Katie could _hear_. It took her a moment to realize _what _she was hearing. _

"Wake them_," a voice said, not unlike the sound of steel blades sliding against each other. Only Thundercracker was visible through the force field that covered their prison. It took Katie a moment to realize that it was a _transmission_; her not-cousin was allowing her to hear this. "_We are changing bases. The Stunticons will bear them there but I expect you as their keeper to watch them._" The voice turned mocking. "_The general will want to save his pagan daughter's soul._" _

_Thundercracker's armor shifted uncomfortably. "_Yes, Lord Megatron_." _

"_They will wake you soon," the thing that borrowed her blind cousin's form said. "I'll speak to you later, but remember that not _every_ outcome here results in your deaths." She hesitated. "I don't have full permission to do much more...but I'll take _some _of your pain. If I could, know that I would take all of it, or even heal your shoulder; we'll just have to settle with what I _can_ do. Hopefully it'll help."_

_The girl moved quickly, _leaping_ across the space that divided them to loom over Katie. This close, the chemical burns on her face and her milky eyes were eerie. They bore down on her until they were closer than Katie would have liked. Her sclera was white, white, _white_ and her eyes, which should have been brown in the iris and black in the pupil were all the same shade of pale, pale blue. Her chemical burns did not disfigure her, but her skin was raised with pale scars that shone in a web over her face like some macabre mask. _

_Katie knew that her cousin had scars from the terror attacks on Mission City, but she had never seen them up close and she had never seen them since the bandages had come off. The amount of _pity_ she felt to see the girl so scarred startled her._

"Wake up_," her hallucination said, so close that Katie could feel the puffs of air from her words on her face._

* * *

The world spun as she opened her eyes and stared up at the shifting force field above her. Maggie and Thundercracker's holoform hovered over her and she let herself stare to reorient herself.

_What a strange dream,_ she thought as she struggled to sit up. Maggie pressed a hand between her shoulder blades and gently eased her into a sitting position.

Thundercracker still seemed displeased from their talk earlier, or, if her dream was true, was rattled from his orders from Megatron. Perhaps it was a mixture of both. _Hurry up,_ Thundercracker signed impatiently. Katie thought that he said it out loud because Maggie's head whipped around to his physical form and color blossomed on her dirty cheeks. With an exaggerated motion like a human sigh, Thundercracker signed, _Lord Megatron has ordered our base to move. The Stunticons will be here soon to transport you._

Hoping that her unease didn't show on her face, Katie carefully levered herself to her feet, knocking her injured shoulder every once in awhile. It still hurt but the pain had faded with time to a steady ache.

Katie helped Maggie to fashion carry-sacks out of their bedding and purses to carry their meagher belongings and supplies and then allowed Thundercracker to ferry them outside, cupped in his palms like a child carrying some small creature.

Gently tapping her shoulder to get her attention, Maggie gave Katie a questioning thumbs-up. Katie returned it, wrinkling her nose. "_It's (indistinct) harder to (indistinct) to you when you're (indistinct),_" Maggie seemed to say and Katie wondered how often she had tried to talk to her and how many times Katie had been too distracted to read her lips.

_Ah, there we go,_ her hallucination said in her head. _Testing, testing, one, two. Can you hear me, Katie Cat?_

Ignoring the hallucination, Katie tapped Maggie's arm to get her attention. With a dirty finger, she pointed to Maggie's lips. "_What the (indistinct) do you (indistinct) about my lips?_"

Thundercracker said something that made his armor plating rattle and Maggie turned back to look at her. The Decepticon said something else and Katie shaded her eyes with her good hand against the bright sunlight.

_Now ain't _that_ a pretty car,_ her hallucination said as Katie blinked the glare from her eyes.

Clenching her good fist, she thought back, _Shut up!_

The hallucination sighed. _Has it occurred to you that I might be here for something _other_ than my own amusement?_

_Yes,_ Katie snapped, suddenly very angry. _Because that would mean I'm going _crazy!

Her not-cousin signed again. _What if I was _really here? She ignored the voice and carefully got into the cab of the car. _His name is Dead End, by the way. _

_What?_ Katie asked peevishly. _What do _I_ care what he is called?_

The hallucination was silent for a while and Katie could tell that she was hurt. Mercifully, she didn't say anything more but Katie had the sense that she was still there. Somehow, it made the silence of Katie's world without her implants even worse. Staring out the window, she watched the scenery fly by.

For once, her arm didn't hurt.

* * *

Lyra's fingers drummed on the countertop as the phone rang, a frown on her lips. A woman answered the phone and she scowled. "Who is this?" she demanded.

There was a sniff of disapproval from the other line. "_Funny that you should call and immediately demand that,_" the woman said. "_Shouldn't you know who you're calling?_"

Lyra replied with a vulgar suggestion that the woman should do with a herd of rams but added that as a punishment it wouldn't be particularly effective, as she would enjoy it far too much. Forgetting that Erin and Nicole were in California, she censored her words but not their meaning. "Put Aldrin on the phone, wench." Lyra had never been fond of Adalie and everyone that knew her knew that above all else, she was rarely patient and was even more annoyed by stupidity.

"Lyra," Adalie said, sounding disgusted and disapproving all at once. They had never gotten along and if Adalie had had her way, she wouldn't even have been invited to their wedding. Lyra's response had been to send a flash drive (then a CD a few days later and a DVD a few days after that just to drive the point home) of her burning the invitation. "_Aldrin is _busy."

Even though the disagreeable woman couldn't see, Lyra bared her teeth in a grimace. It was something that Adalie would use to claim that she was crazy, that she was far more animal than woman. "I _know_," she gritted out. "That's why he _stood the girls up._"

"_He's working on an important project at work,_" Adalie said disapprovingly. "_You of all people should understand._"

Lyra clenched her fists. "I'm his _sister-in-law_, not his _wife_. The girls deserve to see their uncle."

"_I thought Erin was blind? Has that changed?_" It took all of her considerable willpower not to punch the cabinet next to her, mostly because Tyler had just redone them. In the background of the call, Lyra could hear a male voice. "_No, it's just _Lyra_,_" Adalie said without muffling the receiver.

"_Lyra_?" Aldrin's voice came over the phone. He sounded tired, haunted. If she had liked her brother-in-law, she would be more concerned. As it was, her daughters were in the state to _visit family_ and though she had never liked Aldrin or his cult-like faith her sister, may God rest her soul, had loved him and their daughter Katheryne. Erin and Nicole were also very fond of Katie despite not seeing her that often and had been looking forward to the trip and to getting a chance to meet up with the vet.

Part of her anger was also from the reports that Katie had gone missing. The trip was bad timing all around, but something felt...off about the whole thing; something wasn't quite right about it all. Though Erin's whip-like tongue and Nicole's steely resolve had developed through the hardships she had faced since Mission City meant that Lyra didn't _need_ to worry about the two of them, she couldn't help but feel concerned.

"Aldrin," Lyra said coolly. "Erin and Nicole say that you stood them up?"

There was a long moment of hesitation, broken briefly by static-like noise, the only proof that Lyra had that Aldrin hadn't hung up on her. In the background, she could hear Adalie protesting the attention he was giving her. "_I was busy,_" Aldrin said at last.

"So busy that you couldn't even call?" Lyra had asked tiredly. She knew how it was, being married to the secretive types. Erin's father had been that way. More often than not he would stand them up but he at least had the grace to call ahead of time. Though for all she knew he was a drug lord in Tijuana, Bucky was at least loving if he wasn't always _present_. Erin herself felt affection for him as well, and Lyra was glad to see that he seemed to have accepted Nicole as well.

Aldrin paused again. "_You don't understand,_" he complained to Lyra. "_The weight of what I must do._"

Pursing her lips, Lyra felt a prickle of unease down her spine. "Even Bucky could find the time to call if he couldn't make it," she said. Bucky and Aldrin had gotten on as well as Lyra and Adalie had. It made for some good entertainment even if it wasn't healthy for either of their families.

"_That _brute," Aldrin hissed. "_Will never know divine purpose_."

Lyra tried not to scoff, knowing that it would only lead him into a religious tirade, something she definitely _wasn't_ in the mood for. "Look," she said. "They're _trying_. Why can't _you_?"

"_I'll send Adalie out to see them,_" Aldrin said with the heavy sigh of one who is conferring a great service. "_I don't know, she can take them shopping or something._"

For a brief moment, Lyra saw red and she had to take a calming breath and turn away from the cupboards in case she lost her cool and punched the cabinets in the way she had promised Tyler she wouldn't. It was a miracle that Erin had inherited Bucky's calm nature, one that was almost enough on its own to convince herself that there _was_ a God out there. "Don't bother," she said when she was calmer. "They want to see their _family_ and have comfort that Katie will be fine." Neither Erin nor Nicole had said anything about it, but what kind of mother would Lyra be if she didn't know of at least some of their concerns? "You can give them neither."

There was another peculiar silence from Aldrin and Lyra felt yet another prickle of unease travel down her spine. Though she had never spent much time with her brother-in-law (in no small part due to Bucky's blatant distaste of him), she knew that those long, thoughtful silences were not normal for him. "_Body and soul, Katie will be saved,_" Aldrin said softly. "_It has been promised. I will do all I can to ensure this, even if my actions may damn me. They may take comfort in that._"

"Aldrin," Lyra said slowly, fear washing down her spine like ice water. "What are you talking about?"

"_You're afraid,_" Aldrin said without inflection. "_You _should_ be_._ My actions would damn me in all but God's eyes but I know my soul is promised entry into Heaven. I gladly do the will of God and His Angels as is my divine duty._"

Lyra opened her mouth several times but couldn't find it in herself to speak. She found herself staring out the window into the backyard, empty since Izzy was with Erin and Nicole in California. The avocado tree that Erin and Bucky had planted when Erin was ten waved its leaves merrily in the wind, seeming to mock her fear.

"_My actions will save Katie._" Aldrin continued, seemingly not noticing her shocked silence. "_It has been promised to me and so it shall be done. Thank you for the call; I must go now._"

Her phone chirped and the display read **CALL ENDED**.

Catching herself before she punched the cabinets and undid all of Tyler's good work, Lyra stomped outside and grabbed an axe. She supposed that summer wasn't too early to start cutting firewood.

And the hot sun and exertion of a North Carolina June would chase away the chill that had entered her bones.

* * *

Nicole glanced down at her phone when it buzzed in her hand. "_Stay away from Uncle Aldrin and Aunty Adalie_," the text from Lyra said.

It seemed like an odd request, since it had been Lyra that suggested that they try to meet up with them again. She had been so angry when Nicole had told her, when asked, that neither Aldrin nor Adalie had shown up when they were meant to. There had been frigid silence when Nicole added that neither had called or texted to let the pair know that they wouldn't be there.

She glanced at Erin who was brushing Izzy's fur with an odd look on her face. Though they liked to joke that the seeing-eye dog was completely useless, they all knew that the eager-to-please creature had wormed his way into their hearts. Even _if_, more often than not, he got distracted from doing his job by pigeons, food, or babies and was more likely to drag Erin to her death than to prevent it.

"You're thinking too hard," Erin said without glancing at Nicole. Her fingers guided the brush through the wiggling dog's fur. "I can smell the gears burning."

Nicole shook her head. "You're not thinking _enough_," she teased and replied to Lyra, "_10-4_."

"What's on the schedule today?" Chief asked, walking in and interrupting anything either of them may have said. When they decided to extend their vacation, Chief had immediately offered them a place to stay in his house. He said that he missed hearing life other than his in the house, even if Izzy's long golden hair was now starting to accumulate on all of the comfortable spots.

_He's lonely,_ Erin had whispered to Nicole the last night they had originally intended to stay in California. The sounds of Chief's snores echoed in the halls but the heavy door of their room blocked most of it; a bunched-up towel did the rest. _We should stay._

"Nothing," Nicole said and was relieved when Erin didn't say anything to contradict her. "Do you want to do something?" Chief's pleased smile melted away any lingering unease she had from Lyra's cryptic message. Erin's blind eyes passed over her and settled over her left shoulder and she knew that she would have to explain the change in plans to her step-sister later.

Erin smiled, but it was tense.

* * *

That night, Katie found that she couldn't sleep despite her exhaustion. She didn't want another nightmare, didn't want to risk the hallucination of her cousin. Compared to _that_, the nightmare was preferable.

When she sat up, she found Thundercracker's holoform sitting in a corner, a perfect mimicry of the way she had been sitting earlier. The speech board and planchette were in the middle ground between them and Katie didn't need him to sign to understand the message: _if you are up to it, I would like to talk_.

Grabbing one of her cushions, she walked over to the tools and sat. _Hallucination?_ She tried, thinking hard toward the part of her broken mind that the voice seemed to come from. _Are you there?_

_She speaks!_ The hallucination crowed, sounding so much like her cousin that her breath was stolen. She feigned pain so Thundercracker wouldn't guess what went through her head. _What can I do for you? I was starting to get bored._

She gulped and picked up the planchette. _I need your help._

As if she had seen her do so, Katie had the sense that the hallucination leaned forward in interest. _Don't you want to feel normal? Not broken?_ Despite her words, she sounded more curious than angry.

_I need to take _him_ apart,_ Katie said, imagining Thundercracker in her head. _Even if you're not real, even if you're just a figment of my imagination, it feels better at least pretending I have someone else out there that's helping me._

The hallucination was quiet for a moment. _I'm not the only one helping you,_ she said at last, gently. _I'm just trying to keep you sane. Now look at the nice Decepticon and _think_. What will get through that armor?_

_S-P-A-R-K-S_, she spelled to Thundercracker.

_Why did I let _you_ choose the topic of conversation?_ Thundercracker complained.

Katie's hallucination felt like she was smiling. _Souls and sparks are fun,_ she said as if she was a part of the conversation. _Both so _bright_ and _vibrant_. Like stars in the sky._

_Not helping,_ Katie thought to her. _Focus on _him_, not the topic_.

The hallucination giggled. _Ask him about his conscience again. _

Taking the suggestion - and the question the hallucination offered - Katie spelled, _I-F Y-O-U D-O-N-T H-A-V-E A C-O-N-S-C-I-E-N-C-E A-N-D I-F Y-O-U D-O-N-T H-A-V-E A S-O-U-L T-H-E-N W-H-Y A-R-E Y-O-U S-T-I-L-L H-E-R-E W-I-T-H M-E-G-A-T-R-O-N-?_

_What does that mean?_ Katie hissed to the hallucination.

_Why would you be on an alien world fighting a desperate battle?_ The hallucination wanted to know. _Because you were promised something. What was TC there promised?_

So focused on her hallucination's words, Katie nearly missed the reply. _-understand. Where else would I be? With those Autobot scum?_

For once, Thundercracker seemed like the Decepticon Katie had expected, angry and terrifying. When had she thought of him as something _other_ than that?

_He is scared,_ her hallucination said. _Can you not blame him? You are questioning everything he had once believed to be true with all his spark, from extremity to core pump. In some ways, he is as scared as you are._

Katie gritted her teeth. _I'm not _scared.

_Then you are more of a fool than I thought,_ the hallucination replied. _The world is constantly changing, your future always in flux. Did I not tell you that not _all_ of your paths before you now lead to your death? The majority do. Now _focus_ and do not use me to fuel unnecessary anger when compassion is better served._

Feeling strangely annoyed, Katie looked back at Thundercracker. _Who are you to call me a fool?_ Katie demanded and the hallucination left without a word, leaving her feeling strangely alone.

_W-H-Y N-O-T Y-O-U-R O-W-N P-L-A-N-E-T-?_ Katie tried. _W-H-Y A-R-E Y-O-U C-O-L-O-N-I-Z-I-N-G-?_

Thundercracker looked annoyed for once. _Are you stupid?_ He asked in an annoying echo of Katie's own hallucination. Not that _he_ knew what went on in her head, but it was a coincidental slip that still left her quite annoyed and frustrated. _My planet's _dead. _We are the last of our kind._

Looking at his physical body, Katie recognized the symptoms of sorrow in the way he held his body and the portions of his armor along his upper body and shoulders. Though he had thinner limbs with more joints than Jazz had, it was a pose she had seen him adopt many times when they had first met and his thoughts were occupied with their great war.

Her hallucination's angry words suddenly made more sense and she wished she could apologize. _Apologize to a _hallucination, she thought wryly to herself. _Oh how the mighty have fallen._ But she had never been _mighty_ and even if the hallucination's word had been a figment of her imagination, even if she was a symptom of brain trauma, Katie felt bad for snapping at her the way she had.

_Maybe I'm becoming more human because I'm afraid of what I would become otherwise,_ Thundercracker said, waving a hand to catch her attention. He looked surprisingly hesitant and open to Katie even in the gloom of their enclosure. _I'm among the last of my kind and we can be counted in _dozens_ rather than _hundreds of thousands_. What happens when all of our culture is gone and all we have left is this war?_

Katie pursed her lips. _S-U-R-R-O-G-A-T-E C-U-L-T-U-R-E,_ she said.

_You could say that,_ Thundercracker said with a silent laugh that looked as mirthless as she was sure it sounded. _No longer can I be someone faceless in the background; now I'm remembered by Lord Megatron simply because of our fewer numbers and that is never a good thing. _

_P-A-N-S-E-R-B-J-O-R-N-E_, Katie spelled with the lightly glowing planchette. _Y-O-U M-A-K-E Y-O-U-R O-W-N S-O-U-L Y-O-U-R O-W-N F-U-T-U-RE._

Strangely enough, it was something that her cousin and step-cousin had said to her a few times before. That had been _years_ ago, back when they were collateral damage in the terror attacks in Mission city.

Thundercracker looked perturbed. _My soul and future are not my own to make,_ he said. Then in an abrupt change of topic, he signed, _It's late. You should go to sleep._

_G-O-O-D N-I-G-H-T_, Katie spelled before the planchette and speech board disappeared.

Curling up in her sleeping area beside Maggie, Katie wondered about her hallucination and why Thundercracker had seemed so strangely open about what she was sure was a secret he kept close to his spark from his comrades. Perhaps, like her, he felt that the twilight hours when they spoke were sacred somehow, a place where no one would watch or judge.

It was a foolish thought, but it made her feel better somehow to know that she wasn't alone.

As she drifted back to her uneasy slumber, the last thought she remembered was, _I think TC would make a good Autobot_. A good friend.

The thought brought a surprisingly genuine smile to her lips.

* * *

**I feel bad because Maggie is largely left alone but there's nothing to be done for it I guess. She doesn't "see" or "hear" Katie's hallucination (not that she seems particularly interested in talking to Maggie) and at this time, she's not playing a very large part in the story. **

**Katie gave her the book she stole from the convenience store and when Katie and Thundercracker are mooning over each other (from her perspective), she's reading in a corner and trying to create an escape plan. **

**Something along those lines, anyway. She's pretty bored and is probably also singing 99 Bottles in the background. **

**Reviews encourage me to write more and faster!**

**As always, thanks for reading.**

**~DC**


	17. Contrail

**There are so many details I add in that I either don't have time to elaborate on or for the sake of the flow of the story, need to gloss over. The beginning and end notes will have a few fun facts and definitions that will elaborate on these things until I can go back and rewrite all of their backstories (****Precious**** for Armonie and ****Simple Gifts**** for Jordan).**

* * *

**Contrail****: (short for "****condensation trail****") or "****vapor trails****" are line-shaped clouds sometimes produced by aircraft engine exhaust, typically at aircraft cruise altitudes several miles above the Earth's surface. Contrails are composed primarily of water, in the form of ice crystals. The combination of water vapor in aircraft engine exhaust and the low ambient temperatures that often exists at these high altitudes allows the formation of the trails. **

"**Svelto"****: The name given to the slender Saluki dog-form Hot Rod sometimes took to hide with the Scordato family. Long and slender of body, leg, and muzzle, his coloring was similar to an Alsatian, starting as black along his spine and tail and then shading down to brown and cream along his sides and belly. This was the form most Hot Rod most often used to interact with the children and Augostino and was more to play soccer with the kids. **

"**Romeo"****: The name given to the long-haired Spinone Italiano dog-form Hot Rod sometimes took to hide with the Scordato family. They would sometimes call him "Mutt" as well, as his fur often looked dingy, dirty, or damp as if he had just come from running outside in the mud and muck. Especially in this form, he tended to stick to Armonie's heels as she walked, as well-trained as any could expect of a dog.**

* * *

Armonie couldn't see the distortion when she woke up, but she was hardly surprised; despite being well into summer, nights in the desert were still cold and bitter and the heat that had allowed her to "see" the mech had long since dissipated. She moved quickly through her morning ablutions while Jordan puttered around, obviously running on autopilot and then moved quickly to reassure Hot Rod, running her hands over his altered hood.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the tiny prickles at the nape of her neck caused by the charged particles of his holoform. With him auditioning to take over for her shadow, she set about warming up food for breakfast. Jordan continued to change clumsily in the tent and despites still looking ruffled and sleepy when she emerged, Armonie was pleased to see that she was dressed in clothing more appropriate for combat.

As they ate, Armonie glanced at the cars in the parking lot. Hound's Jeep-form was missing but the rest were present, sitting as still as human-made machines. Behind her, Hot Rod's holoform disappeared, but despite what it may appear, she knew that he wasn't far; her shadow now had more substance as it traced her steps, clinging to her legs like her twins once had when they were toddlers.

Prowl joined them at the table, appearing directly on the bench beside Jordan who swore and dropped a spoonful of stew on her pants. Continuing to swear at the unruffled holoform, Jordan wiped ineffectively at the red stain as the rest of their group sans Hound joined them.

Though they had never treated him as one, Saetta fully dropped his human guise and appeared beside Armonie in the space Hot Rod had cleared with his "absence". His hair changed again to something more muted, something less likely to bring attention to them.

"We narrowed down the options," Jazz said without preamble. "_And_ we found one of the Stunticons in the area; we know their base is nearby."

A prickle of electricity raced up Armonie's calves and her ankles felt as if cool hands were wrapped around them. Reaching down, she patted her shin like a master calling their dog to heel; a moment later, her shadow rose up and she could feel her fingers pass through the charged particles that made up Hot Rod's current form. She stroked him soothingly until the grip around her ankles eased.

"Tell us about them?" Armonie asked. "What happened during your encounter?"

Jazz waved dismissively. "Prowler and I can avoid detection if we choose to." The other made a face; a disliked nickname, then. "Besides, Drag Strip was far too interested in drag racing than the other human vehicles on the road with him."

Armonie bit her tongue to keep chastising him; she had to assume that he knew what he was doing, if he was a saboteur as Hot Rod had told her. A three-dimensional image appeared on the picnic table in front of them. It was a bright yellow Formula-1, both plain and ostentatious. How he managed to hide with an alternate form like _that_ was beyond Armonie and Jordan said as much out loud.

"Who in their right mind would hide with _that_?" Jordan demanded grumpily. She had given up on the stain on her pants and resumed shoveling food into her mouth. The sun was beginning to rise, chasing away the night chill and they would need to get moving soon. Wordlessly, Bluestreak and Saetta moved to take down their tent. Armonie could feel Hot Rod tug half-heartedly at her legs as if he wanted to help them but thought better of it. She swirled her fingers reassuringly through the charged particles of his "soft" form and he resettled at her feet.

Jazz gave a human shrug though he wore a crooked smile. "He's proud and I'm not complaining."

Beneath the table, Hot Rod shifted, pooling his intangible form and then assuming a "hardlight" projection. In the dog-form that Angelo had called "Svelto", Hot Rod poked his nose from beneath the table between Armonie's knees. "Pride has always been their downfall," he said, canine jaws moving along with the words even if his lips couldn't move to form the right sounds. It had something that her children had thought was adorable and so Hot Rod had done so every time he spoke when disguised as Svelto.

Jordan looked at her with narrowed eyes though it looked more like she was tired than anything. Armonie hoped that she would wake up fully soon. Shaking her head, Jordan wiped her mouth with a napkin. "What about the rest?"

More glittering forms appeared on the tabletop. All were bipedal with the long limbs that seemed natural to all Cybertronians. Some had one pair of optics; others had two and the largest had three pairs, stacked in the armored, spiky face. All save the bright yellow Formula-1 car were the same shade of matte grey, looking thin and spindly without the heavy armor that their alternate forms would give them.

"So we don't know what they look like now," Armonie concluded, absently stroking Hot Rod's slender neck. She wiggled her fingers through the Saluki's tangled ears and Hot Rod huffed, breath hot against her hip.

She was glad that no one questioned their actions; though it didn't make her uncomfortable, she didn't want to explain anything to anyone right now. Right now, she wanted to _hunt_.

"Not really," Prowl admitted. "I, at least, had not been aware that they had made planetfall until recently."

Bluestreak shook his head, leaning the packed tent against the picnic bench. Reaching over with the hand that wasn't toying with Hot Rod's long ears, Armonie tucked it into her subspace bracelet. "They had been laying low since they arrive," Bluestreak said. "Maggie and I were _aware_, of course, but we simply hadn't seen anything that seemed to indicate they were doing anything other than hiding out."

"How unfortunate," Hot Rod grumbled, a growl rumbling in his canine chest. Everyone glanced at him and then away quickly. "Can we go now?"

"It's getting late," Armonie said briskly, closing the food and tucking them into the "coldbin" of her subspace pocket. As Hot Rod emerged from beneath the table, he shifted into the dog-form that Amina had called Romeo. "_It's a good thing that fur on you isn't real,_" she murmured to her companion in Italian. Jordan and the other Autobots cleaned up their campsite, moving to hide their presence from anyone that may have been looking. "_You'd _die_ in this heat._"

Tongue lolling out of his mouth, Hot Rod looked up at her. Though his expressive eyes looked as carefree as always, she knew that his anxiety was raging beneath the thin facade. "_I might die anyway,_" he replied. Shaking her head, she reached down and scratched the curly fur on his neck.

"Today's a good day to die," Armonie said to no one in particular. The first rays of the sun crested the cliffs ringing their campsite, turning the scattered cirrus clouds high in the sky all shades of orange and pink.

"Romeo" nudged her hip with his bearded head. _Yuff_, he agreed, the same way he had in the mausoleum.

* * *

At the front of the campgrounds, they found a dusty-looking Hound. He slid effortlessly into their caravan, nudging up between Jazz and Hot Rod. "_Weren't you a Ferrari earlier?_" Hound asked over the comms.

"_I had this form in my databanks,_" Hot Rod replied. "_A Ferrari, as nice as it is, stands out and doesn't do very good for hunts in this kind of terrain._"

Prowl huffed. "_A useful skill,_" he said a little snappishly.

"And you say _I_ get grumpy in the morning," Jordan teased. Privately to her, Prowl gave her a improbable suggestions of things she could do with a pineapple; Jordan laughed until she couldn't breathe. Reaching the main road, they began spreading out so as to not draw attention on the lonely desert roads.

Hound began reporting what he had learned and they all updated their information. Jordan tested the heft of her updated weaponry, feeling the change in weight with the new bullets Saetta and Army had given her. She pulled out the weapons bag she had packed in her subspace bracelet and climbing into Prowl's backseat, began taking inventory of what they had grabbed in their mad rush to escape the police.

"It's hard to make so many assumptions with so little data," Jordan murmured, testing the sharpness of the serrated knife in her bag. Wiping the blade down, she strapped it back into its sheath and put it away. "I don't like it."

Looking out the windshield, she noticed that Prowl had caught up with Hot Rod (or Hot Rod had fallen behind to linger just ahead of Prowl) and that Armonie was craning her head out the windows to look up at the sky. "What's wrong, Army?" she asked a little louder, knowing Prowl would take that as a signal to share her question with the Italian woman.

"_Nothing,_" the other woman said slowly. "_But those clouds aren't right._"

Grumbling to herself, Jordan squeezed herself back into the passenger seat, nodding at Prowl's holoform who watched her, the corners of his mouth hooking upward slightly in amusement. She craned her head over the dashboard, squinting to look up at the shining white clouds in the sky. Without looking away from the bright hues of the atmosphere, she accepted the sunglasses that Prowl's holoform offered, slipping them over her eyes and feeling the strain decrease with the tinted lenses.

It took her a moment to understand what Armonie was talking about. The clouds high above looked like wispy feathers, stretching across the sky with soft edges. Looking closer, Jordan saw that there was another set of clouds oriented perpendicular to the flow of the feather-like ones. They didn't look similar to the other feather-like clouds, moving in straight parallel lines with startlingly crisp edges.

"What do they call those again?" Jordan asked, squinting unattractively into the sky with her cheek to Prowl's hot dashboard.

"_Contrails_," Prowl replied over the radio. "_A trail of condensed water from an aircraft or rocket at high altitude._"

Armonie hummed and tucked her head back into Hot Rod's cabin. They turned suddenly and darted off into the desert. "_We're going to scout those contrails,_" Armonie told the group. "_They seem too coincidental and too even for me to be entirely comfortable with them. I'd like to rule them out before we get lost in the desert._"

"_Be careful,_" Jazz replied.

Jordan watched the plume of dust kicked up by Hot Rod's tires. "Why can't _you_ do that?" she asked Prowl, kneeling on the passenger seat and watching as Armonie and Hot Rod disappeared through the rear window. She yelped when he vindictively dropped the seat back, slamming her face into the cushions of the back seat.

* * *

Hot Rod and Armonie caught up to them when they stopped for lunch. She stepped out of her companion's cab, fanning herself with her wide-brimmed at when her covered skin came in contact with the hot desert air. "No doubt, they're as you say," she said, tucking her hat back on her head and accepting the sandwich Jordan offered her.

In one of his dog-forms, Hot Rod sat on the sand beside her, staring as mournfully up at the food as any real dog. Jordan found that she liked seeing him as a canine than as a dead-eyed human and wondered if it was her own fear or if it was just that canine forms seemed to _fit_ Hot Rod's personality.

"Contrails," Hot Rod said from where his chin rested on one of Armonie's boots. "Three in a line. They could just be human jets, or they could be the Decepticons."

Seeing Armonie wolf down the sandwich in record time, Jordan began making another one. "Saetta, these subspace bracelets are _the best_."

Saetta smiled serenely. "I'm glad to have been of help." He rubbed his chin in a thoughtful human gesture. "As for those contrails, I don't have much of a tactical mind but I feel like we can't dismiss them so easily. We don't know which Decepticons are with the girls, but I'm sure we can bet that they have at least _some_ of the jets."

"Starscream's trine seems likely," Jazz agreed. "If they've indeed all made planetfall." Making a face, Bluestreak nodded. "If this is a plot by Megatron, I'm sure he would make Starscream or one of his underlings keep an eye on the captives while he works on his end."

Armonie accepted the second sandwich with a nod. "I vote that we split into three," she said, taking a big bite of the sandwich. Jordan was interested to see that she now ate like she was starved though why this may be was beyond her. "

"Why three?" Jazz asked, rocking a little on his dusty wheels. During their ride, Prowl, Jazz, and Bluestreak had all scanned new alternate forms; when Jordan climbed out for their break, Prowl had allowed his form to shift so that he wouldn't accidentally pinch her when his body rearranged. Now Jazz was a slate grey vehicle that looked like the bastard child of a Jeep and a Hummer with large wheels and open sides. Grumpy, especially since Jordan had so twinged his pride, Prowl had shifted his form into one of the newer land Rover models.

Packing up their lunch and tucking it into the coldbin of her subspace bracelet, Jordan watched Armonie who stared out into the desert with unblinking black eyes. If the bright sun and dry air bothered her at all, she gave no sign. Her only concession to the sun was the wide-brimmed sun hat that shaded her scarred skin.

"One for the road we're on," Armonie said around a mouthful of her sandwich, ticking up a finger of her free hand. Another joined its mate. "One for one end of those trails; the third for the other end."

Hound looked curious, though his facial expression still left some to be desired. "What do you think we would find? We know what way they went if those contrails are theirs," Bluestreak pointed out. "Splitting up just puts us all at risk."

"They're proud," Armonie said. "And they don't think that anyone is on their trail yet, if at all. They may leave behind clues as to their numbers or destination. I feel that _that_ at least might be worth the potential dangers." Her smile turned nasty, the smile of a predator at the end of a hunt. "If you don't think so, Hot Rod and I are more than capable of going out on our own." She pointed to the sky where the contrails were beginning to fade away. "I'm thinking that we'll be finding something interesting over there."

Jordan nudged Prowl's tire and he gave a car-shrug. "Jordan and I will go with you."

"I don't feel safe sending two humans along," Hound said. "No offense," he added hastily, seeing Jordan's mouth tick downward in a frown. "What if they kept someone in reserve in case the Autobots came looking?"

Armonie shoved the rest of her sandwich in her mouth. "We don't care," Hot Rod said while Armonie chewed. "We're going, with or without an escort."

"I wouldn't mind having Jordan and Prowl along," Armonie said, shoving her chewed food into a cheek like a chipmunk so she could speak, if a bit muffled. "Now that the humans have been fed, let's be off."

Trading _looks_ with Prowl, Jordan challenged him to argue with a slight tilt of her chin. Prowl sighed and opened the passenger-side door. Armonie and Hot Rod waited long enough for her to step into the cab before beginning to drive away.

"Be _careful_," Bluestreak said, looking concerned. "If anything at all looks strange, radio in. Keep in constant contact."

Jordan gave him a crooked smile, leaning out of Prowl's open window. Anticipating her needs, Prowl turned on the AC in his cab so she could begin to cool off; absently, Jordan patted his dashboard in thanks while she focused on the worried-looking Autobots watching the plume of dust and sand that were Hot Rod and Armonie. "We'll be fine. You guys likewise be careful."

Nodding at them, Jordan tucked herself into the cab and allowed the window to roll up. Prowl kicked himself into gear and tore across the desert after their comrades.

* * *

They followed the fading contrails for a while in radio silence. Jordan wondered if Armonie spoke to Hot Rod during the drive or if she stared out the windows with her dead, predatory eyes.

"Are you okay?" Prowl asked, tightening the seat belt lightly across her chest to get her attention.

Jordan huffed a laugh and leaned back in her seat. "I feel like this hunt is a letdown," she admitted, knowing that while he may not entirely understand her silly human emotions, he would never judge her for them. "Like...I know that not _everything_ is like it is in the movies. It's not always full of action...but I almost feel disappointed that we're not fighting our way through everything and running through explosions, all of that. Does that make sense?"

"You're more of a frontline warrior," Prowl replied after a brief pause. "We both know this. You're very straightforward and all of this sneaking around and careful tracking is boring to you. There's nothing wrong with that."

She pursed her lips. "I know I can't compare myself to everyone I meet but I can't help but feel I'm letting everyone down. I'm not like Armonie."

The sound that Prowl made would be concerning if he had been a "true" human car; the engine and wheels rattled, shaking the entire cab just enough for Jordan to notice it. "You are _not_ Armonie," her companion told her. "You are Jordan Evans and you come from a long line of public servants."

Leaning back in her seat, Jordan moaned. The seatbelt tightened minutely, as much of a hug as Prowl could give her at the moment. "_God_ I need a drink."

"Will withdrawals affect you?" Prowl asked after a moment's pause.

Jordan sighed. "No, I'm just...not adjusting properly, that's all, Prowl. I have a few bottles I tucked in my subspace bracelet if I _need_ them, but I like to think I don't."

"You don't," Prowl replied with a surety that Jordan herself didn't feel. "I believe in you."

Shaking off such maudlin thoughts, Jordan looked down at her subspace bracelet. Each charm, smaller than the nail on her pinky finger, was intricately designed and had remained strangely cool against her wrist despite the heat of the desert. Such care was taken in their design that there was no loss in detail when they were formed and each charm was perfect, mimicking the items it represented with amazing detail.

"Do you know Saetta?" Jordan asked. "Like, what's his name?"

"If he wishes to be called Saetta, then we will call him Saetta," Prowl replied as they finally caught up with Hot Rod and Armonie. He revved his engine slightly and then fell in beside them so that the dirt and debris kicked up by their wheels wouldn't hit him. Jordan found great amusement in his vanity despite being on a _hunt_ in the _desert_.

Jordan wiggled against the seat. "I was just curious," she told Prowl and patted the arm rest reassuringly. "You know I didn't mean anything by it."

They were silent for a while, Jordan staring up at the cloth ceiling as they drove.

"_We're approaching the end of the contrail,_" Armonie said suddenly over the radio. "_Wake up._"

* * *

Though she wasn't a smoker, Jordan ached for a cigarette. As if reading her mind, Armonie flicked her wrist and a gold box appeared in her hands. "I'm not lighting up," she said, her accent thicker as she offered one to Jordan. "But I like something to toy with."

Jordan thanked her, not recognizing the brand, and tucked the filter into her mouth as if she was going to smoke it. The smoky smell of the tobacco in the unlit cigarette was soothing, even if it wasn't producing the fragrant smoke she craved.

Behind them, the Autobots transformed, looming over them as they explored the buildings. Armonie tucked the cigarette behind her ear and with a flick of her hand, placed the beaten pack of cigarettes back into her subspace bracelet; with another flick, she pulled out a rifle that looked like something out of a science fiction movie or video game.

"I guess we'll look for the human traces," Jordan suggested, following her lead and pulling out one of her grandfather's bolt-action rifles. It wasn't as fast as a semi-automatic or any of his other guns, but she had always liked it for the meticulous attention required to fire it. The heft of it suited her as well. When Saetta had offered to update her gear, the bolt-action was the first thing she asked him to work on.

Armonie nodded without a word, gesturing with a hand toward the first enclosed building among the ruins. As their companions stepped over and around them, exploring the area, the humans inspected the door and windows. All were whole and unbroken; what they could see of the roof was similar in that regard.

Despite evidence that it was unused since the time it had been abandoned, Jordan still pushed the door open cautiously and stepped inside. Like a wraith, Armonie flowed into the room after her, giving it a quick sweep with her sci-fi rifle before backing in fully, keeping the muzzle pointed toward the door while Jordan explored.

"Looks like it used to be a cabin," Jordan said, rolling her cigarette around her lips. She tucked it behind her ear like Armonie as she bent to dig through the drawers.

"Hot Rod says that they found evidence of Decepticon activity," Armonie said, startling Jordan. The desk rattled and the lamp fell over, the bulb smashing against the table.

It was eerily quiet, the only sounds that Jordan could pick up being whatever noise she made. Armonie was silent as a ghost except when she chose to speak, her boots making only the slightest whisper of sound, even over the gravel. As much as it creeped her out, Jordan was jealous at how smooth and effortlessly Armonie could walk.

"Let's find where they kept the girls and then we can explore more," Jordan suggested, hefting her rifle up. She kept the muzzle pointed down at the ground and her finger along the trigger guard. "Just in case we get called away."

The Italian woman nodded once and glided out. Jordan followed closely behind her, eyes and ears alert to their surroundings. All she could hear were the subtle movements of their mechanical friends and the distant whistle of the wind but that didn't mean that there wasn't danger out there.

Armonie molded herself against the beaten wall of one of the buildings and Jordan followed after her. With a flick of her wrist, Army removed something from her subspace pocket, offered it to Jordan. It was a communication headset. "So I don't have to keep translating," Armonie explained, shaking it when it took Jordan a moment to take it from her hand. "Saetta has an updated model for you, or he will when he's finished fabricating it."

Squinting at Armonie's hair, braided tightly and exposed without her floppy sunhat, Jordan couldn't see a headpiece like the one in her hands. Twisting her head, Armonie showed her the clear earpiece she wore, obscured by loose wisps of black hair. A cord curled behind her ear and ended at her neck where it wrapped around her neck below her jaw. Jordan had used a throat mic before, but the one Armonie had and the one that she offered to Jordan.

Quickly, Jordan tucked the mic around her neck and looped the earpiece in place. "_Can you hear me?_" Armonie asked and Jordan felt disoriented for a moment, hearing her in stereo. Jordan nodded and adjusted the earpiece.

"_Jordan's joined the party,_" Hot Rod said over the comms. "_Saetta, do you have an updated headset for Jordan?_"

Jordan was amazed at the clarity; it sounded like they were right beside her, speaking practically in her ear. Satisfied with her adjustment, she nodded to Armonie who glided smoothly around the building.

"_I do,_" Saetta replied. "_I just need to put it all together. I'll have it ready by the time we make camp tonight._"

"Thank you," Jordan said into the mic.

"_My pleasure,_" Saetta told her. It sounded like he wanted to say more but stopped. Jordan focused on the building that Armonie led them to. Hot Rod and Prowl were looking at another building nearby and nodded absently to them. If the two of them were speaking, it was in a way that wasn't audible on their comms.

Jordan and Armonie framed the door, weapons held at the ready. Though they were from different backgrounds with different languages, they were still able to understand the other's hand signals.

_Long-range,_ Armonie said, gesturing to Jordan's rifle. _Back-up, cover-me_.

_Count-of-five,_ Jordan agreed, backing up a few paces and lifting her rifle.

Rearranging her grip on her sci-fi rifle, Armonie counted down and kicked open the wooden door. The rickety door flew off its hinges under the Italian woman's booted heel and they both flowed into the room.

The first thing that Jordan noticed was the _smell_: unwashed human and excrement filled the close space and she tried not to gag. Seeing that the room was empty, Jordan sagged a little before flowing along one of the walls to check for any bugs or traps left by the Decepticons. Finding none, she met up with Armonie in front of the second room.

"What _is_ this place?" Jordan asked the woman.

"_What place?_" Bluestreak asked over the comm.

Armonie's lips twitched; wordlessly, she offered Jordan a menthol stick. Shaking her head, Jordan dug in one of the pouches on her belt and pulled out a Vick's stick. Both of them rubbed the menthol sticks under their noses and continued to explore the area.

The building was open, one half taken up by cells while the other half was an open area. Jordan guessed that it had once been a police station: the cells were obviously meant to hold people while the wide open area may have been for processing or may have held other cubicles. Now it was a rubble-strewn mess with the ceiling blown off. A portion of the wall above the rusting iron bars had fallen apart and some of the walls had caved in.

"It looks like an old jail_,_" Jordan said when it was clear that Armonie wasn't about to say anything. "The most of the ceiling is gone and so are some of the walls." She didn't say anything about the smell, not being sure that inorganic life forms could understand how _rank_ it was. "We're sure that the girls were kept here. Or...I am, at least," she added with a glance at Armonie.

"_Watch out for unstable walls,_" Jazz said.

Armonie shook her head though only Jordan could see it. "All of the walls appear sound. The destruction looks deliberate."

"_Still,_" Saetta said gently. "_The demolition may have affected the structural stability of some of the walls. Watch out especially for the load-bearing ones._"

The women didn't say anything, fanning out to explore the cells. Only one appeared to have been used and that was where the worst of the smell was. Call her cowardly, but Jordan wanted to save that room for last. Armonie seemed of the same mind for she was inspecting one of the piles of rubble within view of the cell.

"_I found evidence of a Cybertronian,_" she said, voice clear over the comms even if Jordan couldn't quite hear her voice from where she stood. "_At least one of them was guarding them. They sat across the cell we think the girls were in._"

Jordan could feel the slight rumble in the ground and looked up. Where the walls were tall to a human, they were barely waist-height to a Cybertronian. Prowl peered over the wall and in through the broken ceiling. A moment later, Hot Rod's head and shoulders appeared over the wall closest to Armonie.

"_Lingering Energon radiation seems to indicate that a Cybertronian was here,_" Prowl said over the comms but not out loud. Jordan was glad; a nearly twenty-foot tall robot wasn't exactly _quiet_ and even if the Decepticons had left, there was no guarantee that they were _alone_. "_I concur with Armonie's assessment. What I can pick up matches all of her observations here._"

Hot Rod seemed to bristle but he said nothing; Armonie smiled serenely though Jordan could see even across the distance that separated that her black eyes were as dead and soulless as a shark's. If she was insulted the way Hot Rod seemed to be, she didn't show it.

Taking a deep breath - through the nose, letting the air pass over the menthol in front of her nostrils - Jordan steeled herself and climbed over the rubble into the cell. "Yeah," she said, voice a strangled squeak. "The girls were _definitely_ kept here."

"_What's wrong?_" Prowl asked and somehow she knew that it was for her ears alone.

Giving in to temptation, Jordan rubbed the menthol stick under her nose again and lit up the cigarette. The smell banished only a little bit of the smell. "Be glad you can't smell," she said. Unwashed and sweaty human held in a cell for a few days without working plumbing made for a terrible odor. Combined with the merciless heat of the desert to turn the smell into noxious fumes, she was already feeling lightheaded.

"_Could what you're smelling be from the previous users of the building?_" Hound asked.

Immediately, Jordan shook her head and took a long drag of the cigarette. She coughed at the feeling of the nicotine in her lungs and on her next draw, pulled the smoke into her mouth and kept it there. The tobacco deadened her taste and smell which was all she wanted out of life at the moment.

"No, it's definitely fresh." Jordan said, hoping that she didn't sound as breathless as she felt. She could see Armonie steel herself and make her way over. "I can...you know what? Take my word for it. It's fresh."

No one laughed like she hoped. It was understandable.

Armonie muttered to herself in Italian, slipping on one of the cinderblocks. Immediately, Jordan reached out to help, catching her sleeved arm to steady her. The woman flinched as if Jordan's firm grip hurt and once she was steady, Jordan let go as if she was burned. "Injury," the Italian murmured to Jordan by way of explanation. "Still a little tender."

Smiling thinly, still shaken up by the smell and the honest flash of pain across Armonie's face, Jordan turned away. She looked at the cell with fresh eyes. A pile of trash in the corner caught her attention. It was in one of the corners exposed to the sun, bleaching away some of the colors and melting what was sensitive to heat.

"I found some makeup," she said. "It looks like they cleaned out their bags and pockets here trying to lighten their load."

"_What's the lipstick?_" Bluestreak asked immediately. "_What kind?_"

Picking up the lipstick tube as requested, Jordan squinted at the tiny engraved letters. "Elizabeth Arden," she said, putting the tube down. "It's pink."

"_That's Maggie's,_" Bluestreak said, sounding breathless.

Jordan continued to pick through the small pile. "There's a tube of lip gloss." It looked old and beaten, as if it had been in someone's purse for _years_. The sides were clumped and dried, little desiccated cracks forming in the little bottle that further confirmed her suspicion that it was an old tube. "And a pair of blue headphones." There were strange plastic pieces in the pile. She separated the flesh-colored plastic and tried to figure out what they were.

"It looks like the girls were sleeping here," Armonie said from one of the shaded corners. The ceiling had been intact there, throwing an area into cool shadows.

The ground rumbled as the Cybertronians walked around the building. "_There's residue of a force field over the ceiling,_" Hot Rod said, his physical body giving off a low rumble. It reminded Jordan of a growling dog though she didn't voice her comparison out loud in case Hot Rod decided to squish her; he seemed oddly feral and combined with Armonie's almost-dead eyes, they were a force to be reckoned with and Jordan _knew_ what danger looked like.

Jordan gave up on the strange plastic pieces. "I have some other strange debris here, but I can't quite make it out. They're all beige-colored plastic."

"_Cochlear implants?_" Jazz asked immediately. His voice was sharp, almost desperate.

The wall near Jordan groaned as Prowl rested some of his weight on it. He cast a shadow over Jordan's crouched form and she obligingly stepped back to allow him a better glimpse of the shattered pieces in front of her. "_They may be,_" Prowl conceded.

"It's hard to tell," Jordan said. "They're smashed to bits."

"_No_," Prowl said slowly, sounding surer of himself. "_They _are_ in small pieces due to some kind of damage and I can tell that there are pieces missing, but I can see the shape of it now._"

Jordan stood and walked around the cell. There wasn't much more to see. Some bored soul had used a rock to draw on the walls. "I don't like this," Armonie said, shaking her head as if to dispel some dark thought. "Let's finish up here and head out."

"_Ping us again when you leave,_" Jazz said. "_We'll send you our coordinates_."

Seeming to understand how the humans were suffering with the smell, their companions leaned over the wall (making them creak and groan ominously), offering their large hands. With an ease that spoke of long practice, Armonie scrambled up Hot Rod's arm; Jordan sat austerely in Prowl's palm and allowed him to lift her carefully out of the cell.

Jordan opened her mouth to say something to Prowl by thought better of it, remembering her throat mic. "_Later,_" Prowl promised quietly to her and her alone. She smiled up at him as he placed her gently back on the ground.

"Do you want to take a look at the rest of the buildings?" Jordan asked as Armonie swung down Hot Rod's legs. For a brief moment, she hated the little Italian woman because she didn't seem at all fazed by the exertion.

"No," she said bluntly. "But let's do it anyway. Maybe we can find information or more supplies."

They weren't pressed for supplies, but it wouldn't hurt. "_We're going to see if we can pick up more readings,_" Prowl told them. "_If you find more evidence of activity, let us know._"

"They're making a map," Armonie explained as they moved to the next building. Like the first building they entered, it looked broken down much more broken down than the cell that held the girls; the door was rotted away and hanging halfway off its hinges. Still, Armonie and Jordan entered with their weapons ready. "Since they moved relatively recently, they can still pick up signatures...ah...I'm not sure in the English, but _Energon_."

Jordan nodded. "Energon," she agreed.

"If they can pick up enough, they can make a guess of how many were here," Armonie continued with a nod. "Then we can have an idea what we're up against."

Nodding agreeably, Jordan continued to move along the buildings with Armonie. After an hour of searching the buildings, they called it a day. The most interesting thing that Jordan found was a rusted railroad spike; Armonie had found a fist-sized lump of native copper partially covered in verdigris.

"_We've received Jazz's coordinates,_" Prowl told Jordan through her earpiece and the stereos in his cab. "_It's a long drive from here._"

"What about the team that went to the other end of the contrail?" Jordan asked.

There was a pause. "_The path that Jazz and Bluestreak were taking began to intersect with Hound's,_" Armonie said from Hot Rod's cab. "_They regrouped and went to find a camping spot. When we get there, Hound will report in._"

Prowl's engine rumbled soothingly and his holoform appeared in the driver's seat, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder gently. "Rest," he said kindly.

Reaching up to her neck, Jordan took of her throat mic, keeping the earpiece in. It dangled from her ear, tugging distractingly on it. "If I rest now, I might not be able to rest tonight."

"We don't know if we will," Prowl reminded her. "Rest while you can." He paused. "If we do rest tonight and you cannot sleep, you can always come to me."

Jordan smiled at the holoform. "Believe me," she murmured. "I'll never forget that."

"Rest," Prowl said. "I'll wake you if anything looks hinky."

Chuckling, Jordan closed her eyes. By some trick, Prowl darkened his windows so that the sun didn't shine directly on her face. With the cool air blowing on her sweaty skin, the gentle rumbling of his engine, and the twilight shadows that Prowl created for her, Jordan relaxed. She wasn't _tired_ yet, but she knew how to take a nap. "I got you to say _hinky,_" she said, closing her eyes.

Prowl added an extra rumble to his engine, something that had always soothed her. "You get me to do a lot of things."

With a smile, Jordan committed herself to a nap.

* * *

**Throat Microphone (laryngophone)****: A type of contact microphone that absorbs vibrations directly from the wearer's throat by way of single or dual sensors worn against the neck. The sensors, called transducers, can pick up speech even in extremely noisy or windy environments; other types of microphones do not function well under these conditions because of high levels of background noise.**

**Evan's Bite****: Bolt-action rifle owned by Jordan's grandfather. She inherited it from him when he could no longer lift it due to the palsy in his hands and his waning strength as he grew old. He named the rifle and had the name engraved into the butt before he passed it on to Jordan.**

**Armonie's rifle****: Armonie's rifle was designed on a whim. She regrets introducing Saetta to Angelo, who had in turn introduced him to **_**Mass Effect**_**. Saetta was fascinated by the weaponry and so had created replicas. Upon learning that the Decepticons had killed her family, Saetta took one of his replicas and made it "live". For the most part she doesn't use it for combat unless she feels she needs the extra "oomph". **

**Verdigris****: a bright bluish-green encrustation or patina formed on copper or brass by atmospheric oxidation, consisting of basic copper carbonate.**


	18. Distrail

**Sorry if this chapter seems a little "off". My friends are visiting this weekend and I won't have time to binge-write so I'm trying to get a chapter (or most of one) out before I get distracted cooking. **

**Hope you enjoy!**

**~DC**

* * *

**Distrail****: short for "dissipation trail"; the plane's warm engine exhaust causes existing water droplets to evaporate, leaving a clear wake through an otherwise cloudy sky.**

* * *

The campsite that was chosen was very much out of the way of the main roads. Hot Rod opted to go last so that his large tires would cover the rest of their tracks and decrease if not completely hide their numbers.

"I think whoever chose this campground did it to mess with us," Jordan murmured to Prowl as they ventured off the main road.

Prowl rattled in response, part annoyed and part amused. His vanity showed itself at very strange times, to Jordan's great joy. It was only after interacting with Prowl so much on the job that Jordan knew how sorely tempted Prowl was to transform and walk the rest of the way and reaching out, Jordan ran a gentle hand over the dash board. She winced when the entire car shook as they bounced along.

"How close are we, do you think?" Jordan asked, reaching over and rubbing the arm of Prowl's holoform. Her hand passed through him, as he had no reason to "solidify" the particles; why he even had it "on" in the wilderness was beyond her. Perhaps it soothed him, as when they were on duty he was always the one that was driving.

Her companion's head snapped to her, no doubt feeling the disturbance of her fingers in the charged particles that made up his human form. She was allowed a moment to enjoy the sensation and watch the little glowing dust motes swirl around her hand before it began to solidify and her fingers were gently eased out of his arm. "A few more minutes," Prowl said, sounding unusually robotic, a sign of his tension. Though he could only "feel" the pressure of her grip, she still squeezed his forearm gently. "We're nearly there," he added pointedly.

Sighing, Jordan tucked herself fully in her seat once more and watched the scenery creep slowly by. She didn't want to suggest that he change his alternate form again because she knew how it felt to him. Each alternate form he chose was very carefully chosen, weighed against every other option.

Granted, he hadn't really chosen his usual police cruiser self, having to conform to the rest of the force and their own cruisers. If he chose to move around the city when not on duty, he projected another sort of holoform over his paint so that he wasn't perpetually "on duty". After all, seeing the same cruiser with the same serial numbers at all hours would be suspicious.

It probably didn't help the loneliness she knew he felt but tried to hide from her.

As they rattled along, Jordan ran her other hand over the seams of the upholstery. The Dodge Charger that Prowl usually was had cloth seats. It was worn where she sat, the cushion molded to her ass and the matt beneath her feet worn from the restless movement of her boots. Ever considerate of the minute details that sold their story, Prowl created false wear on the driver's side where his inorganic holoform "drove". She didn't like that his new interior was leather, even if it was fake. The dislike didn't come from her thoughts on animal cruelty, but rather that it simply _wasn't Prowl_.

Jordan leaned back in her seat, pressing her whole body to Prowl's "new" cushions. They did not have the same wear, the same feeling against her soft organic body. She wasn't very fond of change, after all.

_God, I need a drink_, she mouthed to herself, running a hand through her hair. Much in the same way that she and Armonie had explored the abandoned mining offices, her once-neat braid felt as if it had been picked through by curious, greedy fingers.

Prowl said nothing, but the glove compartment in front of her popped open, revealing a nip of Jameson resting on the inside of the compartment. He did so without a word out loud to her, but she knew what he was saying anyway. _Go ahead. I trust you. You're not weak for wanting it. We're all monsters here._

Strangely enough, Prowl was as much as her conscience, her accountability partner, as he was the voice in her head that encouraged her addiction.

With more force than was necessary, she kneed the glove compartment shut, hearing the little plastic bottle slam into the back of the compartment once before it was whisked away into subspace. Jordan swallowed hard and forced herself to lean back in her seat. Shaking her head, she took a deep meditative breath and tried to force her thoughts away from the little green bottle Prowl had unwittingly teased her with.

She had been doing so well…

* * *

"She will trade one vice for another," Hot Rod told Armonie in Italian, driving a few lengths behind Prowl as he struggled over the rough terrain. Where the Land Rover struggled over sharp peaks and valleys as they approached the site that Hound had chosen for their camp, the modified Mahindra MM540 scaled them with comparative ease. "She is a liability." _And you are weak to allow her to come along,_ Hot Rod didn't say but he didn't need to for Armonie to hear it; they simply knew each other that well.

Looking down at her hands, she realized that without conscious thought she had been drumming lightly on her thighs. "Why don't you have faith in her like you have faith in me?" she asked, knowing that they should all be concerned at how loose and floaty her voice sounded.

As far as she was concerned, she could worry when she was _dead_. Although, perhaps that was a bit melodramatic; still, _now_ was not the time to worry.

"Because you _proved_ yourself," Hot Rod whispered, voice nearly lost as they rattled over a ridge that Prowl had struggled over. Hot Rod himself had an easier time simply because his wheels were larger than the other Cybertronian's, in turn lifting his cab higher off the ground. "What does _she_ have to prove? How long she can go without alcohol?"

Armonie shrugged as if she didn't care. Some days it was hard to tell with her, but Hot Rod _knew_ her. As far as he was concerned, her word was all he needed to trust her and he knew that she wouldn't lie to him. Though she didn't have the chemical sensors of her partner, Armonie had seen the signs in Jordan's house. The recycling bin had been full of empty beer bottles in a two-bedroom house inhabited by a ghost that didn't eat and a single human; she had seen more in the pantry when she went to fetch the pots and pans needed to cook. She had seen the miniatures stacked and lined up like Angelo's toy soldiers on a shelf well within her sight and reach.

But a drunkard did not make a good _polizia_ and Armonie could see the fierce glint in Jordan's eyes even as she had tipped a bottle of beer down her throat. When they had been packing, Armonie had caught a glimpse of a picture on the dresser. It was Jordan and Prowl standing at attention and on her dress blues, Armonie had seen the many commendation bars the woman had earned. Even if the colors and symbols didn't mean anything to her simply because of their differences in backgrounds and "language", she knew what those bars meant.

Unbidden, her memories had returned then as they did now to her father and she allowed herself a moment to think about him before returning to the conversation at hand.

"We each have our own things to prove," she said serenely, not rising to Hot Rod's bait. Amina had been the same; full of fire, always spoiling for a fight. Seeing her standing protectively over her brother with her hands clenched made her realize that her family's fire had only transferred to one of her twins. She was glad; it was a difficult burden to bear.

Hot Rod grumbled privately to her, not allowing the sound to travel past her throat mic. It was a habit that was hard to break, especially since they were once more on a hunt.

Permitting herself a moment of softness, Armonie reached out and stroked Hot Rod's steering wheel like one would soothe a spooked horse. "It's too bad we don't have Guardian this time," she murmured. "But our group now looks promising."

"A Drunkard and her Enforcer," Hot Rod said bitterly. "A Broken Mother and her Dog, a Scout, a Fractured Engineer, a Saboteur, and a Sniper. Very promising."

_You're being very pessimistic,_ Armonie didn't say as she stroked Hot Rod's steering wheel again. She didn't need to say it out loud for him to hear it; they simply knew each other that well.

* * *

"I followed the contrail as you suggested," Hound told the group when they had all made it to the campsite. Needing something to do, Jordan had volunteered to set up the tent and had set about it with gusto. Once more in dog form, choosing Romeo's curly-haired visage, Hot Rod watched her from Armonie's side while she heated up food. "It roughly followed the path that the rest of the group was on so we regrouped and decided to just keep an eye on the trails."

Jordan straightened suddenly. "Oh," she said, digging into her pocket. "I just remembered."

A handful of debris was dropped in Jazz's palm when she gestured for him to hold out the hands of his holoform. Armonie recognized it from the cell they had explored.

Bluestreak looked so painfully hopeful that Armonie felt a pang in her chest. Hot Rod leaned against her thigh and she buried her fingers into his curly fur for strength. She needed iron, now, not silk.

"They're alive," Jordan said gently. "Or they were when they did this and that was only a few days ago."

"No telling what may have happened," Hot Rod said brusquely. "But we didn't pick up any traces of decomposition."

Bluestreak's young face went frightfully blank; so did Jazz's and Armonie knew then that they loved their charges as much as she and Hot Rod loved each other. It terrified her to think that the girls could be used against them and what kind of pain it would cause if she needed to kill them to defend herself and Hot Rod.

Romeo pressed tighter against her hip and buried one side of his face in her stomach. She rubbed his ears as if he was a dog and he sighed though he did not relax.

Glancing at Hot Rod out of the corner of her eyes, Jordan shook her head and went back to the half-formed tent. Though most could take her expression as disgust, Armonie could sense that Jordan was more amused and perhaps a little jealous. In the woman's minimalist house and drinking habits, Armonie could see someone far too alone for their own good.

"We didn't see any sign of the Stunticons," Jazz said, his voice cold. "But that didn't mean that they weren't out there."

Hound nodded agreeably. "I think that from what you've said, the contrails are definitely from the Decepticons," the Jeep said. "Since they led you to their previous base."

"It doesn't always mean that the contrails were from the Decepticons," Jordan pointed out. She straightened with a groan, running one hand through her sweaty hair while one hand pressed against the small of her back. "And it could be coincidence that your paths intersected."

Looking out across the sandy wasteland, Armonie sighed. Her years with Agostino had resulted in her trading her senses for the desert for a love of the forest and green hills of their home. Now it felt like coming home, like she was forgetting Agostino, Amina, and Angelo. As if sensing her thoughts, Hot Rod/Romeo nudged her hip with his nose and she distracted herself for a moment, running her fingers through the muddy curls around his particles of light that formed up his springy fur felt heavy with moisture, a strange feeling against fingers that weren't registering moisture.

Hot Rod backed up as Armonie patted his neck and stood, following properly at her heel as she began to take out food for dinner. "We should've packed some firewood," Jordan said, eyeing the sparse bushes along the bluff.

"A fire would cast light and give us away with smoke," Hot Rod said, an edge of a growl in his voice. "This isn't a camping trip."

Prowl shifted minutely and Hot Rod bared his teeth at the other before slinking closer to Armonie. If words were exchanged, it was in a manner that the humans couldn't hear. "True," Jordan said, the skin around her eyes and mouth tightening a little. She fumbled a little to unpack her camping gear, throwing her sleeping pad and bag into the tent. "What's our plan?"

Looking back out into the distance, Armonie saw a puff of dust that had no reason for being there. It rose tremulously in the whistling wind of the mountain they had made camp on. "Do we have other proof that the...ah...contrails were caused by Decepticon jets?"

"It's only a hop between the old base and here," Jazz said. "At least, if you're a jet. And we haven't seen the Stunticons."

"We still know far too little," Jordan said, sounding a little annoyed. Taking the plate of food Armonie offered, she vaulted onto Prowl's hood to lean against the windshield as she ate. She sniffed her armpit and made a face. "I'm sorry, Army," she said a little ruefully. "I must _reek_."

Armonie shrugged and helped herself to some food, sitting cross-legged on the sandy ground; Hot Rod crowded against her back, propping her up as she ate. If he had been a real dog, the heat of his body and long fur would be unbearable but light charge he kept on his holoform for her prickled against her skin and felt delightfully cool. "I don't mind," she said. "We didn't come out here to smell like daisies."

The other woman barked a rough laugh around a mouthful of food. "True enough."

For a moment, the humans were silent. "Do we have a plan of action?" Prowl asked into the thoughtful, tense silence. The humans continued to eat while information was traded; if they had anything to say, they decided not to share.

* * *

"Do you experience withdrawals?" Armonie asked Jordan as the other woman tossed and turned on her sleeping pad.

She could imagine that she saw the surprised look on the other woman's face, but it was far too dark for her human eyes to see anything. "Not quite," Jordan said at last and there was a heavier rustle. Armonie imagined that the ex-officer was rolling over to face her. Even in the dark where they couldn't see each other, human mores still won out. "I drink because I am afraid and…"

"My Agostino was a smoker," Armonie offered after so long a pause that she was almost afraid that Jordan had fallen asleep. "He was too innocent, _mi tesoro_; he was the reason I learned to lie."

Jordan shifted in the dark and from the quiet sounds that Armonie could pick up with her weak human ears, she thought that the other woman was playing with the dirt. "You say _was_," she whispered. "And those charms on your necklace are...larger than most convention."

"I've seen larger," Armonie said, tangling her fingers in the cool chain. A part of her was impressed that the other woman had noticed it, as most of the time it was tucked beneath the collar of her turtlenecks. But then, she was a veteran officer; no doubt she had been trained to see things beneath the clothes that didn't necessarily belong. She wiggled her fingers, making the charms rattle against each other. "They're all I have left of them. Agostino was my husband; Amina and Angelo were our twins."

The other woman hummed. "What happened?"

Armonie was glad that Jordan hadn't apologized. In the darkness, she felt herself falling apart. If they weren't hunting, the darkness was their only time to mourn. Jordan couldn't see the weakness in her face or the tears misting her eyes. With her other hand, Armonie gripped the rifle Saetta had made for her children first as a toy and then as a weapon upon hearing of their deaths. The power core hummed subtly beneath her hands and she toyed with the idea of telling Jordan any more than she already had.

With a jolt, Armonie realized that Jordan simply _didn't know_; she and Prowl had not been at the base, had not been witness to her interrogation by the staff and the humiliation, the insult to her skills by those who hadn't understood. But Jordan moved like a warrior, if a broken one, and Armonie decided to release the poison of her grief.

To her joy, Jordan didn't offer apologies, didn't give useless platitudes for her loss. She grunted when she talked about meeting _Folgore_, huffed a laugh as Armonie told her about his choice to disguise himself as two different dogs to play with her or her children in their turn. When Armonie hesitated to share the story of the days leading up to _L'Evento_, Jordan made no sound; _it's entirely up to you_, her silence said. _I will not force you_.

Armonie told her. In breathless whispers that would hide the raw grief still tearing at her and the subtle sobs that would have interrupted her story. It took more effort than she was willing to admit to continue the story in English, but eventually she did.

At the end of the story, when Armonie had told her story up until the burial of her family's ashes in the Scordato mausoleum, Jordan grunted. "Did you kill them?" she asked brusquely.

"_Si_," Armonie whispered into the darkness. "_Tutti_." She would have said more but she was almost afraid of what fury and hatred would come out; she closed her mouth on the words.

Jordan grunted again into the darkness of their tent. "Good."

There was a rustle as she rolled over again. _Yes,_ Armonie thought to herself. _It's good; she understands._

_But it won't bring them back._

Armonie fell into a fitful sleep, one hand resting on her rifle, the other tangled in the chain of her necklace.

* * *

Though she denied to everyone else her withdrawal symptoms, Jordan could feel it in her fingers. They weren't shaking; she wasn't _that_ bad yet, but they felt tingly, almost weak. It wouldn't affect her ability to shoot a gun or dodge fire - those were all instinctive now - but she hoped that it wouldn't let Armonie down and let her come to harm.

She hoped that her nocturnal movements didn't wake the war-hardened woman as she climbed out of her bedding and made her way outside. Despite it being the height of summer (or so it seemed during the day), the desert air at night felt utterly frigid. Rubbing her bared arms, Jordan made her way over to the vague blobs of darkness that were the Autobots not on watch.

Prowl turned on his cabin light and by that golden beacon, Jordan picked her way to her partner and climbed inside. He had turned on his seat warmers (or had he let some of his natural heat bleed into his interior to warm his delicate human partner?) and she sighed with relief as she settled herself down again.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the quiet hum of the desert. Once she was settled, Prowl turned off his cabin light, plunging them both into the darkness of the wilderness.

A form seemed to materialize outside of the tent and for a moment Jordan thought that the figure was a coyote come to explore their camp. But the ears and silhouette were entirely wrong, with a blocky head and floppy ears. The eyes of the dog-form that Hot Rod had taken to adopting appeared lit from behind, as demonic and reflective as a cat's eyes. He phased through the tent wall and disappeared from Jordan's view.

"He's hurting," Prowl said softly, appearing in his customary position behind his steering wheel. He was more relaxed, appearing as a young man out on the town with his friends rather than the fierce partner of the public servant he had earlier named her. "He wasn't always like that."

"War does that," Jordan agreed. "How old is he? Relatively?"

Prowl hummed thoughtfully. "I suppose he would be in his early teens," Prowl said thoughtfully. "He's still rather young."

"What about you?" Jordan asked, glancing at Prowl out of the corner of her eyes.

The holoform shrugged. "Around your age, maybe younger." he admitted. "I'm not that old myself."

"Our lifetimes must seem like seconds to you," Jordan murmured, watching the tent as if she could see what was going on inside. If she had to bet, Hot Rod had curled his large form against Armonie's side and she had wrapped a hand around his ribs.

"Time still passes normally for us," Prowl said, deliberately misinterpreting the question. "Just as it does to you. The units of measurement are just different."

Jordan let him have that, leaning her seat back to stare up at the moon as it hovered above. "You didn't have a sunroof earlier," she said, absently nudging Prowl's armrest with an elbow. The window slid open silently, letting in the cold desert air and the quiet drone of desert insects. She shivered and the seat warmed further beneath her. "I like it. Can you see Cybertron's sun from here?"

"Cybertron is a wanderer," Prowl replied after a long pause. The driver's seat leaned back and his holoform leaned back on his seat, mimicking her stargazing pose. "It doesn't orbit a sun. Since we are mechanical beings, the solar radiation and temperatures - or lack thereof - are not detrimental to our health."

"I wonder if the radiation you've acquired - since you're inorganic - will eventually kill us." Prowl turned his holoform's head to her so rapidly that if he had been organic, Jordan would have been concerned that he had given himself whiplash. "Relax; I was joking."

Prowl shook his head. "You're so fragile," he told her quietly. "It's a miracle you haven't died yet."

"Not for lack of trying," Jordan reminded him, tapping the metal plate in her skull. Seeing the tortured look on Prowl's holoform, she sighed and reached over, squeezing his arm. "It's okay, Kenny," she teased. "It'll all be okay."

Her friend sat up, placing a hand over hers. "You don't know that," he whispered. Being among humans for a year and a half, he knew how to mimic facial expressions and he used it now to show her how _not okay_ it was. "You _can't_ know that."

It all clicked for her and she reached up to close the sunroof. The glass began to slide closed before her finger could reach the button and Jordan sat up, the back of the seat following without action from her. "No," she agreed. "This is about Armonie, isn't it?"

Prowl looked away. "I remember how I felt when you got that," he told her quietly, gesturing vaguely to her head where the pale sliver of her surgery scar would visible through her black hair if they had been in the sun. "I can imagine...how broken it must feel to him."

She stacked their hands and squeezed his knuckles. "The feeling is mutual," she told him. "And I don't want to die."

It didn't placate him, but he calmed down a little, looking a tiny bit less wild and desperate. Smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring way, Jordan leaned back again to stare at the sky through the closed sunroof. The opacity decreased as if by magic and she stared up at the clouds, thin as gauze as they traveled overhead.

"Prowl," she whispered, staring up at the wispy clouds overhead, dark as smoke and only visible at the edges where they glowed under moon- and starlight and in the voids caused by blocking out the stars. There were lines in the clouds, as straight as if they were cut deliberately.

With her weak human eyes she would not have seen them if one of the lines hadn't cut across the edge that partially covered the moon. It gave her a starting point that allowed her eyes to adjust enough to find the rest of the clear-cut trail. Tracing the length of the trails like the reverse of the contrails they had seen earlier, Jordan squinted into the night to see if she could find where it ended.

She didn't need to; over the densest scatter of clouds (was that the Milky Way?), she saw the reverse-contrails make a swirling corkscrew pattern, something that a military _or_ commercial jet would do.

Prowl's door refused to budge when she moved to open it. "Get dressed," Prowl said, voice cold and battle-ready. "I've commed the others." Reaching into her subspace, Jordan stuck the little transducers of her updated throat mic to her throat and hooked the earpiece over her ear.

"Radio on," Jordan said. "Testing, testing."

Armonie echoed her a heartbeat later, sounding as if she were speaking right in Jordan's ear. "_Confirmed, Dan_."

Tugging her body armor on in the car was difficult and she tried not to give an undignified yelp as Prowl helpfully slid the passenger seat back so she had more room. "Confirmed, Ar."

After the humans had eaten dinner, they had decided on shortened names so that they weren't all tripping over multiple syllables. Armonie had explained that she had Hot Rod had done so when hunting the Decepticons that had killed Armonie's family. Against mechanical beings as fast as Cybertronians were, human hunters needed every second they could buy themselves. Though it was more for the human than the Cybertronian hunters, they all participated in a weak effort to lighten the mood.

"_Good catch, Prowl,_" Jazz said. Since both of them already had short, one-syllable names they had been exempt of choosing new ones.

"_It was Dan that noticed him first,_" Prowl replied. "_I just sat here worrying._"

Deliberately, Jordan let her leg kick out to smack Prowl's dashboard with her booted heel. If he was bothered by the dusty footprint, Prowl didn't show it. Perhaps they had other things to be worried about. "_Think it's a 'Con?_" Bluestreak asked.

"_Think you can get a clean shot on him, Blue?_" Saetta asked. He had chosen the name _Jack_, as "Saetta" couldn't be comfortably broken down.

Prowl shuddered. "_Don't,_" he cautioned. "_We don't know if he sees us yet._"

"_Not without transforming,_" Blue said at the same time.

"I'm not sure we can move quickly given how hard it was to get here," Jordan said, making a face as she finished strapping her body armor to her chest. She took a deep breath, expanded her chest, and moved her arms to check the fit before going back and tightening or loosening straps to get it to sit right on her body. "If it comes down to it, you might have to transform and carry the fleshlings."

Prowl shuddered. "_The terrain is extremely difficult_," Hound agreed. "_Hopefully we won't have to, though._"

"_I don't trust well to hope,_" Hot Rod muttered darkly. This tires twisted nervously from where he was parked next to Prowl.

There was a sign over their comms. "_Mutt,_" Army said, sounding weary and fond all at once. Neither of them had explained why Hot Rod decided on a call sign like _Mutt_, but no one dared ask no matter how curious they were.

With bated breath for the humans and unnatural stillness for the Cybertronians, they kept scanners trained on the jet dancing in the sky high above them.

* * *

The edges of Thundercracker's wings twitched and he would tilt his head up toward the sky, watching something that was beyond Katie's weak human eyes.

She waved to catch his attention and signed _wrong?_ Thundercracker's head was still craned toward the heavens but she knew that he didn't need to be facing her to "see" her. He didn't respond, even when his holoform was staring blankly at her.

Behind her, Maggie slept on, oblivious to her late-night meeting with their gaoler. The speech board and planchette, whose designs had changed slightly since the last time she "spoke" to Thundercracker, flickered in front of her and she looked again at Thundercracker. His wings twitched again, reminding her of some of her cats at the shelter and how their ears and whiskers had twitched when stalking a bird.

The thought of her shelter sent a pang of sadness that she tried not to let take root. To distract herself, she reached out with her good hand and found a small pebble. She threw it at Thundercracker, pretending that she could hear the little _ping_ it made against whatever portion of his armor it had struck him. It was so dark that she could only barely see his metallic outline through the...ah..._skylight_ they had created to allow the Decepticon to enter their enclosure.

Thundercracker's head and torso snapped toward her, his bright red optics cycling entirely open in a strangely surprised expression. Like an unhappy cat he took a moment to resettle, the plates of his armor shifting slowly back into their "comfortable" configuration. Most of it Katie couldn't see, as there were no lights so far out here and they had to save the batteries of the small lantern that they were given. The moon cast just enough light to illuminate the edges of Thundercracker's dark blue armor, leaving the rest of his great bulk to shadow against the far wall of their enclosure.

Like they were animals in a zoo. _Their enclosure._ She was disgusted with herself, even if her naming of their prison was entirely in her mind.

_Sorry,_ the holoform signed, waving to get her attention.

_Wrong?_ She signed again, mostly because it was a simple sign to do even with her left hand and it would take longer to spell on the speech board.

Thundercracker's wings twitched and his red optics swung back up to the sky. _I've been grounded,_ he signed with his holoform. _I've always known it but Lord Megatron made the announcement _publicly_ on the way here. Now everyone knows it. Skywarp is mocking me by flying overhead. He's _supposed_ to be on patrol but instead he's doing maneuvers over us._

Katie wondered if Maggie could hear it but given that most of the Decepticon fliers were jets of some sort, she doubted Skywarp was low enough for her to _see _even in the sunlight, much less hear if her cochlears hadn't been destroyed.

She thought that she could see the trail of clouds created by the black jet's wings but it was hard to see anything past the oilslick lights of the forcefield locking Katie and Maggie in their menagerie enclosure.

_Sad, isn't it?_ She felt herself twitch in surprise at her hallucination's voice. Though it didn't make sense, she hated that she had "snuck up" on her.

Katie bit her lip. _Is this what you wanted?_ She demanded, letting rage fill her so she wouldn't feel pity for their jailer. Thundercracker wasn't a fair target of her ire; her hallucination, being only a figment of her imagination, _was_. _For me to feel pity for him?_

As clearly as if she had seen her, she knew that the hallucination had shrugged. _No,_ the hallucination said. _My goal is to steer you from _hate.

Katie had no answer to that and angry that her target had been taken away from her, she glared at Thundercracker's holoform. _What's wrong?_ He signed. _You look angry_.

"I'm _fine_," she snapped out loud, feeling the buzz in her throat from her disused voice, felt her mouth make the sound. Glancing at Maggie, she found that the woman hadn't stirred or opened her eyes; she had spoken with the right volume, then.

When she turned back, Thundercracker's holoform had his head cocked at her; his real body was still staring longingly at the sky. _He's a bird with clipped wings,_ her hallucination said. _Right now, he's just as trapped as you are._

_They're going to kill us,_ Katie thought furiously back at her hallucination. _What will happen to _him_?_

For a long moment, her hallucination was quiet. Thundercracker was too distracted with the gentle wiggling of his wings and halfhearted yearning to the open skies to notice and Katie felt another stab of pity that she couldn't bury with rage. _When your ears were taken away,_ the hallucination said. _How long did you sit there and wish it was all a bad dream? Every word in ASL that you learned, how much did you wish that you could just scream your words without anyone judging you?_

Katie clenched the fist of her good hand, hating how rubbery her right hand felt. The pain had mostly faded - a small mercy - but if she moved her shoulder too much it returned and if she hadn't been concerned of irreparable damage to her shoulder, she would have moved it to allow pain to bring clarity to her brain. Because she had to be in shock or suffering from some mental instability to feel _pity_ for Thundercracker.

_Suit yourself,_ her hallucination said. _But hatred won't help you._ Even though it was an auditory and not a visible hallucination, Katie could sense her standing up, brushing imaginary dust off an imaginary skirt before leaving. _Take it from someone who knows,_ the hallucination added before leaving.

Gulping, Katie looked up and up at Thundercracker. _Pity won't help me,_ she thought to the hallucination, even if she had left. It was like yelling angrily after a retreating back; she wanted that feeling of having the last word. If the hallucination heard, she gave no sign. _Only anger will._

Still, she watched Thundercracker's alien face, watched how his holoform began to lose detail with most of his attention focused on the sky just out of his reach. "I'm going to sleep," she said out loud, forcing her voice to remain even. "Goodnight, TC."

If he heard, the Decepticon gave no sign and she fumbled her way to her nest of blankets and dusty cushions. Sleep came far too slowly but when it did, it brought dreams of backyard parties with friends and family.

_An unfamiliar woman cooked at the grill, a curly-haired water hound at her side. Restlessly, the hound became a Saluki with Alsatian-like coloring then transitioned smoothly into the form of a snow leopard, butting his head into the woman's hip before returning to the form of the longhaired water hound. "_Smettila_," the woman said fondly, using one hand to flip burgers while the other scratched the dog behind the ears. His tongue lolled out of his mouth but he said nothing. _

_There were more people in the yard: a hard-looking woman next to an equally-hardened man who watched her as if afraid she would disappear if he looked away, a man with rainbow-colored hair, Lennox, Epps, and a few others she recognized from the Autobot base. _

_Everyone was laughing, having a good time and then Izzy bound through everyone, bowling people over in his excitement to be free and around New People. His harness was still on and the handle flopped around as he bounded and leaped in excitement, nearly knocking over a table covered in food and drink. _

_Trailing behind the golden retriever came Nicole and Erin, the former holding the latter's arm. The _tak-tak-tak-tak _of Erin's long cane suddenly sounding far too loud in Katie's ears. In front of Katie, Erin stopped and turned her blind eyes to her and smiled as if she could see her. _

_The chemical burns around the upper portion of her face glowed blue and for a brief moment, Katie saw her as she must have been during the Mission City attack: covered in ash, splattered with red human blood and glowing blue Cybertronian "blood" - Energon. Blood dripped down from her legs and an arm hung crookedly; the chemical burns on her face looked like bloody tears and her hair was matted so that it stuck to her head. _

_She lifted a finger to her lips. _Hush,_ she said without moving her lips. _Go to sleep, Katie Cat. Tomorrow is a big day.

* * *

Without thinking, his feet led him to Katie's room, devoid of life save for the utterly _massive_ silver tabby cat she had adopted shortly before disappearing. Snowy (_who names a silver tabby _Snowy?) blinked emerald green eyes at him before deeming him uninteresting and looking away.

"Here, kitty kitty," Lennox called halfheartedly, wiggling his fingers at the cat.

Snowy ignored him, flicking his tail back around to cover his paws. Daily the cat would wake up, wait in eerie silence to be fed, and then walk to the main doors of the base and sit as if waiting. At the end of the day, he would return to his food dish, wait for his food once more in disturbing silence, and then return to Katie's rooms to sleep.

Lennox was used to loyalty in dogs but seeing it in a cat like Snowy made his skin crawl. Cats didn't _feel_ love; they were assholes. But Snowy seemed to not only know that Katie was missing, but also that if she were to return, it would be through the doors he waited in front of from morning to evening.

Cat's weren't _supposed_ to be loyal, but Snowy was and somehow, considering how his life had turned upside-down, it wasn't as surprising as it should have been; maybe that's why he was so disturbed by the cat.

He sat at Katie's desk chair and Snowy peeked an eye open at him. _Go ahead,_ he seemed to say sarcastically. _Walk in here like you own the place and take a seat anywhere._

"Sorry," Lennox said, ignoring the fact that he was apologizing to a _cat_. "I just need a quiet place to think."

As if he understood the major, the cat snorted and half-closed his eyes. A raspy purr filled the silence and Lennox wondered if he was going mad to imagine that the cat did it to _comfort_ him.

The last few days had been tiring, full of tension and the worry that the government would choose to bomb the base out of existence. With General Keynes' falsified evidence that the Autobots had been violating the treaty they had worked out with the human governments of the world, the base had been on lockdown. All human personnel had been ordered to leave; Lennox and his squad - the _original_ ones, all that remained of the group that had made first contact in the God-forsaken deserts of Qatar - had been the only ones to remain. The rest of the base had left, had scattered without a thought of loyalty to anyone but themselves, as soon as the order had come through.

But perhaps Lennox was being unfair. The other humans didn't care about the Autobots, hadn't had any desire to work closer with them. Perhaps it was because they were scared as the Autobots represented undeniable proof of life beyond their little organic planet.

Lennox nearly jumped out of his skin when Snowy jumped on his lap, settling shakily on his thighs so that his eyes were level with the major's. _You're thinking too much,_ Snowy seemed to say and Lennox realized how tired and stressed he had to be to anthropomorphize _a cat_. Cats don't _talk_.

_Cats Don't Dance,_ Lennox thought crazily and stifled a hysterical giggle. Giving him a dirty glare, Snowy carefully settled himself in Lennox's lap and continued to purr. The major was glad that the massive cat was careful with his claws considering how...sensitive some places were.

Hesitantly, he reached out and stroked the cat's back. One green eye popped open and the purring paused for a moment; the eye closed and Snowy's whiskers twitched forward smugly. "Glad I could be of help, Your Highness," Lennox murmured sarcastically to the cat.

Snowy ignored him in favor of cleaning the back of a paw.

Careful not to dislodge the cat, Lennox leaned back in his chair, trying to relax even a little bit. Perhaps the cat was right in his own way. There wasn't much that could be done now. The base was a ghost town, only five humans left in residence; the remaining life forms were the Autobots, all of whom were uneasy with their forced compliance.

"Humans always complicate things," Lennox told Snowy, echoing a sentiment he had heard around the base in the past few days; Ironhide had said it to him multiple times himself but it had always been in jest. "Loyalty is weird," he added as an afterthought. "Cats are simple."

Snowy snorted quite as if he understood and tucked his newly-clean paw under his chest as if for safe keeping. He yawned and purred in Lennox's lap.

Feeling much like a Bond villain, Lennox continued to stroke the cat until, quite without meaning to, he dozed off.

* * *

**Nip****: a small quantity of liquor; a very small bottle of liquor.**

**Alcohol withdrawal****: alcohol withdrawal symptoms can begin as early as two hours after the last drink, persist for weeks, and range from mild anxiety and shakiness to severe complications, such as seizures and delirium tremens. The death rate from delirium tremens - which are characterized by confusion, rapid heartbeat, and fever - is estimated to range from 1% to 5%.**

_**Mi tesoro**_**: (Italian) "my darling", "my treasure"**

_**L'Evento**_**: (Italian) "The Event". Armonie tries not to think too much about **_**what**_** happened, instead combining it all into The Event so she won't lose herself to mourning.**

_**Si. Tutti**_**: (Italian) "**_**Yes. All of them**_**."**

**Kenny****: An affectionate Jordan uses for Prowl in private. It started when they had first become partners and he had stated that he preferred to be called by his "surname", Kent. When injured, she had called him Kenny in the delirium of a concussion: **_**holy shit, they killed Kenny! You bastards!**_** It's not a name she calls him often, especially after learning his true background and only when they're alone.**

**Call Signs****: also known as ****call name**** or ****call letters**** is a unique designation for a transmitter station. In the military, call signs are assigned as unique identifiers to military communications. **

**Alsatian****: (German: **_**Deutscher Schäferhund**_**), the former name in Britain for the German Shepherd breed. **

_**Smettila**_**: (Italian) "Stop it," according to Google Translate. **

**Long cane****: a subtype of "white cane", long-canes are typically sized from the ground to the user's sternum and is used for the blind or visually impaired as a mobility tool and as a courtesy to others. There are at least four other varieties, each serving a slightly different need. **

_**Cats Don't Dance**_**: a 1997 American animated musical comedy film distributed by Warner Bros. Family Entertainment.**

* * *

**On another note, I need a beta-reader, mostly because I usually finish a chapter after a long time binge-writing and am too excited to post that I don't reread. **

**So...I guess sorry for all of the errors. I'll go back and edit when I'm more awake.**

**~DC**


	19. Hacker

**So I got a head-start on my writing for next week and miraculously managed to pound out a chapter this weekend. Originally, I was going to Gunnison with my friend but because of the hurricane (that didn't happen, I might add...**_**ugh**_**), the parks and beaches were all closed so we didn't go...and I wrote a chapter instead. **

**I also wanted to apologize for the lack of action...we're getting there, I promise. All of the pieces just need to be set up before we can get to the explosions you're all expecting. These people are so messed up it's not even funny and I feel like I need to do them justice. **

**WARNING****: The rating has changed due to (relatively non-graphic) discussion of torture and neglect.**

* * *

Breaking into the human communication network was laughably easy. The mechanoid that Armonie had once referred to as a distortion the rippling heat waves of the desert frowned as he noted the meeting schedules, communiques, and listed orders.

_NEST has been disbanded_.

_All human personnel are to remove themselves from the premises immediately._

There was a snippet of an audio log that the mechanoid listened to, turning his attention to it while the rest of his advanced processor continued to monitor the logs. The sound was grainy, laced with static and distorted by primitive machinery.

"_Major Lennox, you and your men are to _stand down,_"_ an older human barked, sounding angry that his order had not been obeyed the first time. The mechanoid guessed that the argument - if it could be called that - had been going on for some time, judging by the frustration in this older man's voice.

"_I don't think so,"_ the human that must be Major Lennox said, sounding paradoxically tense and cool at the same time. The spy was curious to meet this human and hoped that he was still alive - the logs the remaining portion of his processor were following seemed to indicate that an aerial strike was being planned to eradicate the base. "_We'll be staying right here._"

So that implied that the Major - _ex_-Major according to the logs - wasn't the only one to defy orders. Interesting.

"Boy_,_" the older man barked. "_What do you think you have to prove?_"

When Lennox answered, it was with an easy swagger that reminded the spy of arrogance. Though he only knew this human through audio logs, Armonie's distortion already knew that it was entirely feigned, that some long-buried part of him found amusement in the ire of others. "_Loyalty,_" Lennox said breezily. "_I do not believe your allegations and therefore refuse to comply until such proof is provided that I am convinced._"

"_We don't _care_ what you believe,_" the other man snapped. A portion of his processor searched for the older man's name. _Colonel Tanser_. _Assigned to NEST above Major Lennox. _

_NEST: the Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty. Co-commanded by Colonel Jacob R. Tanser and Major William "Wild Bill" Lennox._

But their...discussion seemed to imply familiarity; the spy dug deeper. It disturbed him how much the humans seemed to rely on their technology to protect them. Though those sheets of _paper_ were even more archaic, it protected sensitive information from one such as him and those like him. To use a human phrase, the lack of security made his skin crawl.

His musings and brief tangential research had taken the space of half a second; the recording continued. "_It's not belief we're _asking_ for - _we're asking for your obedience. _Our orders are to _stand down_ and remove all human personnel from the bases. Order your men _out."

"_I did; they wouldn't listen and I know them well enough to not argue. The result would be very similar to this discussion as well._" Lennox said coolly.

No one on the recording said anything for a brief moment, the rasping white noise of the primitive audio clip sounding strangely loud; the spy chalked it up to weak human compassion, a strange human disease that the spy knew was rapidly spreading through his species.

"_I gave you a chance, Will_," the colonel said at last, softly. It sounded like a personal conversation, something that should not have been recorded and saved as evidence to prove that Major Lennox was of unsound mind. "_Here's one last one: I can get away with only demoting you to Captain if you comply _now_. You're a good man, a good officer. But if you don't...if you keep doing this, I can't save you; your military career will be _over."

The spy sent another portion of his processor to research "Wild Bill" Lennox. _A young, capable officer. A member of the United States Army Rangers. Field Commander of the NEST base. He has the friendship and trust of the men under his command. _

Despite the glowing commendations and awards this Lennox received, it seemed odd that a man so young had received top-secret clearance to deal with the "NBEs". The spy was fascinated with what he found.

This young man even by his species' standards had been present during an attack on the SOCCENT Forward Operations Base, _had survived_ when everyone else had died. He had led his squad and a local boy across the desert with a Decepticon symbiote chasing them, defending himself and his men until they could be rescued.

Once rescued, he had been whisked back to the United States and had almost immediately returned to the frontline. With his squad, he had taken down Decepticon Brawl in what was being called the Battle of Mission City for those that were aware of what was really going on.

The spy was impressed despite himself. He knew that humans were much more than what Cybertronians assume of them at first glance. Sure, they were soft, squishy, used to shorter timelines than mechanoids and had more needs. They were small and fragile and couldn't move with the same speed as a battle-ready Cybertronian and yet, despite having to be carried around to keep up, they were cunning, dangerous, and far more than what even the most optimistic Cybertronian could expect.

He had been on Earth for a month, having masked his planetfall from Autobot, Decepticon, and human notice. Though, perhaps that was an inaccurate statement; he was _sure_ that they had to have noticed, but he refused to make contact, content instead to keep himself to the outskirts and pine in solitude. Unlike the Autobots, he had not taken a human companion, hadn't seen the point in getting attached to something so frail and mourning the loss of such a feisty little flame.

Still, what kind of spy would he be if he hadn't heard of the whispers of human tenacity? One story in particular had stuck out for him of destruction across a small country across the sea from the continent he had made as his home and whispers of _la figlia di generale di brigata_ and _la madre vendicativa_.

A notice flashed across the logs as they were updated: _Aerial strike requested_.

_Permission denied,_ came the response not too long later. _Humans still present at NEST base_.

The spy frowned - or would have if he had the parts to at the moment. He didn't trust to hope that the request to strike the Autobot base would be denied for much longer, which in turn put a lot of pressure on the hunters in the desert to clear up the Autobots' good names.

He gave an un-car-like jump when his comm unexpectedly pinged. As far as he was aware, only one other knew he was on Earth and knew his comm codes...and he wasn't expecting a ping from him. For a moment, he debated whether or not to respond, knowing that especially given the dire circumstances of the moment, he shouldn't answer in case it gave his position away.

His comm pinged again but this time it was a nonverbal comm, similar to a text message to humans. There was no "read-request" on nonverbal comms so there was no way for this mystery person to know he had "seen" their message.

_Curiosity killed the cat_, he thought ruefully to himself, not even bothered anymore that he was using more inane human phrases. After a moment more of debate, he opened the message.

The humans will not wait very long before they bomb the Autobots. It was a strange message from a code that the spy didn't recognize but he had to appreciate the blunt sentence. He scoffed to himself; he already knew that.

Deeming it unworthy of a reply, the mechanoid returned the majority of his attention to watching the argument between the humans about what to do about the Autobot base.

I know you already know that, the next message said when his nonverbal comm pinged again. I cannot do much to delay them, but I _can_ help _you_.

Despite himself, he was curious he responded. Who _are_ you? How do I know I can trust you?

Haha, the next comm said and the spy felt a tingle in his circuits when he saw the human response. How did a _human_ got a hold of his comm signal? Before you get your panties in a bunch, no, I'm not human; I just spend a lot of time with one.

An Autobot, then. It didn't make him feel much better, especially since his mystery comm guest hadn't said exactly _what_ they were aside from _not human_. It didn't narrow it down and gave him no reason to trust them.

As for the trust thing, that's certainly up to you, his comm continued. It is not my goal to get you to trust me; just to help you.

He was suspicious but still curious. Why do you want to help me?

To distract himself, he threw himself back into the humans' information network. He researched the general trying to destroy the Autobots and his missing, deaf daughter. No one seemed to be aware of it, which was strange.

The spy pursued that tangent for a while, a sinking feeling rattled through his spark core. The Secretary of Defense, John Keller, had been called to the Autobot base for a meeting with the base personnel and other, unspecified individuals. He was sure that at least Director Mearing and Colonel Tanser were there as well even if they weren't named directly; no one was, except for the SecDef...something that the spy found very odd.

After that, the SecDef left and so did the meeting's guests and there was no mention of the meeting afterwards. No minutes, no recordings; though the spy wasn't looking particularly hard, he still could find no evidence of it save for its presence in the SecDef's calendar.

Curiouser and curiouser. (He should really stop with the human idioms.)

His nonverbal comm had been pinging while he did his research and when he was moderately satisfied, he opened his comms. If he had eyebrows, he would have raised them in a human expression of surprise. _Oh_.

* * *

The night spent in Prowl's interior was one of the worst of Jordan's life. She trusted her partner with her life, knew that he would wake her if something went wrong, but the _what-ifs_ ran rampant through her head, leading to fitful bouts of sleep.

_What if the Decepticon attacked while she slept?_ Prowl would wake her, of that she had no doubt. He would need to transform and he couldn't do that with his sleeping partner.

_What if she _couldn't_ wake up?_

_What if they were strafed before she could get out of Prowl?_

What if Prowl was killed because she couldn't move fast enough? _Because she had been asleep?_

It had been Armonie's soothing voice in her ear that had put her to rest. _Jordan, this is a private line,_ the woman had said._ Prowl is worried about you; rest. Don't worry about the what-ifs_.

Jordan had said nothing, not wanting Prowl to know more of her weakness. It would kill her if Prowl himself had died, especially if it had been by her negligence.

_Sleep,_ Armonie's voice had insisted in her ear. _Short naps. _La Caccia ha inizio_._

Leaning back in her chair, Jordan let herself fall into fitful slumber. She knew that she would need it now that the Decepticons knew they were on their trail. They would have to travel at _their_ pace, not at a human speed.

And Cybertronians can move frightfully quick.

_I've got you,_ she thought she heard Prowl say just as she was dozing off. _I'll protect you_.

Jordan slept.

* * *

Armonie watched the subtle rocking of Prowl's cab as Jordan shifted again. She could understand the woman's concern; it _had_ taken Armonie herself a while to get used to sleeping on the hunt. Eventually she had learned to sleep like the dead for short "cat naps", otherwise she wouldn't have been able to sleep at all.

Her fellow hunters had once asked her if she would like to stay behind, had spoken behind her back about leaving her and Hot Rod behind so that she wouldn't kill herself in the hunt.

They had very quickly rethought that assessment when she had been one of the ones to bring down Crasher on her own. Humans were weak compared to Cybertronians, true, but they were determined and Armonie saw no reason to underestimate Jordan.

She tangled her fingers in her necklace, watching the dark ceiling of her tent. She wished that she could move, could do _anything_ other than lay there. Hot Rod, unable to be picked up on thermal imaging in his holoform, had moved down her bedroll and unzipped it so that if there was an attack, she could move quickly without getting tangled up in it.

"_Are you awake, Armonie?_" Saetta asked quietly in her ear as if her thoughts on her gear summoned him.

Humming in agreement, Armonie anticipated her friend's request and pulled out the bag of gear he had given her. "_Jordan is asleep,_" Hot Rod told her, nudging the head of his holoform into her elbow. "_Finally_."

"We can brief her on this later," Armonie told them, fingers finding the nightvision goggles. She knew better than to look down at them by now, as Saetta had gotten a lot of influence for his designs from the cartoons that Angelo and Amina had enjoyed watching.

At that thought, her necklace felt as if it weighed ten times more than it should have.

The elastic band slipped smoothly over her braided hair, mussed from lying on it. "_Same deal as your throat mic,_" Saetta said to her and Hot Rod. "_I programmed a few settings into the glasses - just a few simple things until you get used to it._"

Armonie nodded to herself and blinked up at the tent ceiling. Another blink and her dark world was drowned in shades of green. She could see with surprising detail: the hooks that held the tent cover to the poles, the thin shadows where the fabric bent, even the seams of the material if she looked hard enough. Blinking again, the feed changed to an IRT feed.

The world through the IRT feed blew her away. The world was awash with gradients of red-violet-blue-black from the residual heat in the desert. Above her, the tent frame crossed in purple arcs, the gaps bridged by gauzy indigo panels of the nylon tent material that clung to the little hints of warmth that her body gave off.

Turning her head, she was unsurprised to find that she both could and could not see Romeo's holoform. Reaching out, she touched Romeo's fur to make sure it was still him (as opposed to Svelto), breathing a sigh of relief when she felt heavy curls.

Through the IRT feed in her new goggles, the particles of light that make of his form are visible as violet speckles dancing fitfully on a field of black and indigo. His shape was vague, appearing to her as an amorphous blob. Her own fingers, a comparatively brilliant gold-orange-red, warmed some of the particles nearby, turning them fuchsia, but otherwise did not seem to do much in terms of affecting his holoform. The blobby head that Armonie could see through her new IRT feed split in a vague grin.

Armonie blinked again and her new goggles switched back to "normal" glass. She suspected that they would function as sunglasses as well; if it didn't, she would be disappointed in Saetta. (This wasn't necessarily the case, though; she would kindly suggest it to him since she couldn't be sure that the engineer had even thought of it, as he lacked delicate organic eyes sensitive to the light of their own sun.)

Looking at her companion, she found that Romeo glowed slightly, the way that he had always done when he knew that she wanted to see his holoform. Romeo gave her a silly canine grin and wiggled closer. Leaning back, Armonie looked up into the sky and returned to her new IRT feed.

The jet was a tiny pinprick of light on a black and indigo background. Her only indication that it was anything more than just a human jet (aside from the maneuvers, of course) was the tiny corona of light from his spark.

She pressed her free hand to her sternum. _Sparkless_, Bomber had called her. Folgore (the name Hot Rod went by at the time) and Phantom had hamstrung him, to use a human term, and nimble as a goat Armonie had climbed his wrecked body. She could still see the incredulous look on his Energon-soaked faceplates, the look of disgust that he had been brought so low by ones so weak. It had all been deliberate; Folgore had had the opportunity to make the final shot that ended it but instead he had spared the Decepticon. That kill was for Armonie.

Perhaps it should have been concerning, but Armonie couldn't remember feeling anything when she pulled the trigger that had ended the hulk of metal that had once been Bomber.

"_You're _sparkless," he had snapped at her moments before his death.

"_Yes,_" she remembered saying, voice empty, lifeless. "_I am._"

It was overly dramatic, something you'd see out of some American action movie, but she couldn't bring herself to care then...she still couldn't.

As she lay in her opened bedroll, waiting for the inevitable attack, Armonie couldn't find it in herself to care; she didn't think she ever would.

She watched the jet high above circle once more before darting away, cutting across the desert.

* * *

Maggie woke up from her exhausted sleep to a cold, tingly hand on her knee. It was Thundercracker's holoform, lit lightly from behind so that she could see it but not bright enough to hurt her eyes. "Wake up," he told her brusquely.

She told him what he could do with his suggestion and his holoform, rapidly appearing more and more human, frowned. It was almost a passable expression. "Why," she demanded but began complying anyway, in case he got the idea to torture them the way the rest of his ilk had already done.

Katie's deafness and distraction were a mixed blessing. She didn't notice when Maggie was interrupted in the middle of the night and dragged off to be interrogated. It wasn't something she wanted the other woman to know, anyway.

It bothered her far more than she wanted to let on how _kind_ Thundercracker was in comparison to his brothers and brethren. _Psychological warfare_, she thought to herself. _It's working_.

"We're moving bases," Thundercracker said roughly though his holoform was much gentler, helping her to her feet before moving to Katie and gently waking her with a touch to the woman's bare knee. Maggie couldn't help but feel jealous at his almost reverent treatment of her friend, but at the same time she was glad that he didn't torture her the way they had with her.

The speech board appeared in front of Katie and they had a brief conversation; Maggie turned away, knowing that it was probably along the very same lines as the one that she had just had with their jailer.

"We have a new captive," Thundercracker told her from his real body, his voice booming and raspy and so unlike Starscream's nails-on-a-chalkboard vocalizations. "I don't know how to take care of him...he's different than you two. I need your help."

She allowed herself a brief moment of surprise, pausing in her brisk folding of their bedding. _If she moved fast enough, she could get it done before the pain caught up to her_. Swallowing a whimper of pain and the hard flinch it brought, she continued moving. Her ribs protested the movement but she ignored them and how her blood rushed to her face as she bent.

_I hope I haven't punctured a lung_, she thought to herself. But she had been told that her ribs had _only_ been broken.

_Think on it_, her interrogator had said in a lifeless, monotone voice. _Because next time they will _break.

"Okay," she said grudgingly. "What's wrong with him?"

Thundercracker offered a Cybertronian shrug. "He's different," he said. "Older. I don't know what to do with him; they just assigned him to me."

Frustratingly gentle, Thundercracker offered her his hand so that he could carry the both of them out. Their bedding disappeared into his subspace pocket and as she and Katie were lifted gingerly out of their cell, Maggie wished for a moment that she had kept the blanket.

The desert night air was icy on their skin as they were carried outside and she was sure that they were a few degrees away from seeing their breath. Her shivering hurt her cracked ribs and she clenched her jaw, hoping that her anger would keep her warm enough to get into whichever Stunticon would bear her and Katie to their new destination.

Thundercracker put them down next to Dead End and after a pause to make sure that Katie was all right getting into the driver's seat, she folded herself into the passenger's. Glancing in the rear-view mirror, she was startled to see another person, dressed in a once-neat suit already there. His face was hooded like a hawk's but she recognized that tie anywhere.

"_Go on,_" Eeyore told her morosely and the passenger seat shifted backwards. She hissed as the abrupt motion jarred her ribs. "_I think he needs help._"

Though she said nothing out loud, Maggie complained in her head about well-meaning Decepticons. It made it hard to hate them when Thundercracker was so kind and while Dead End wasn't exactly _nice_ to them, he at least didn't treat them as badly as the rest of them. In fact, during their last move he had made conversation with them. Granted, the conversation continued to edge toward the gloom-and-doom that had evidently inspired his name, but he was a surprisingly good conversationalist.

Perhaps it was just because she didn't have many others to speak to. She hoped this would change with their new friend.

Climbing gingerly into the back seat, Maggie inspected the man. His forearms were bound with glowing cord from wrist to elbow and the skin that was visible around his hands and wrists were covered with lurid bruises. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Katie trying to crane her neck to look at them without causing pain to her shoulder; Dead End helpfully tilted his rear-view mirror for her, allowing her to see into the backseat.

Outside, there was a screaming of engines as Thundercracker transformed and leaped into the air. As the deafening roar slowly faded, Dead End started his engine and began driving.

Carefully, Maggie slid her hands under the pillowcase that served as their new cell mate's hood. He flinched, probably not expecting flesh-and-blood hands to touch him and blinked rapidly when she lifted the cloth away from his eyes. There were matching sets of bruises around his neck and he had a very impressive black eye. Even with his injuries, she would recognize him anywhere. "Oh, _John_," she said and he stared at her dumbly for a moment, trying to process everything.

"_Maggie?_" His voice was hoarse and raspy, making her concerned for his health.

This was the last place she had ever wanted to see _anyone_, but it was such a _relief_ to see another familiar face. "_John._"

John Keller, the United States Secretary of Defense, gave her as much of a hug as he could with his arms bound. They ignored how deeply his wrinkles dug into his older face from stress and pain, his swollen eye and split lip. She ignored the fact that he would be more likely to be "interrogated" than her, as the Decepticons knew that she was his aide.

She pretended not to know that his frail body would probably give out under their tender attentions and their five-star accomodations. The glimpses she had of herself in the mirror in their living areas and during their drives with Dead End showed her a gaunt-faced woman with sunken eyes and cheekbones. Katie wasn't much better, her pain taking its toll on her body despite not being...interrogated the way that Maggie was.

Katie watched them in the rear-view mirror, something strange in her hazel eyes. Turning her head from the tearful reunion in the backseat, she watched the dark desert fly by and wondered why they were moving bases so soon.

* * *

Hound had not believed him at frist, but they had been friends long enough that he trusted the slippery spy and had eventually extricated himself from his companions and followed the Honda CRV into the twilight. He supposed that it was fortunate that the Autobots trusted the scout, for none of them followed or inquired much more about him as they settled down for the night.

"Well," Hound said, his thick voice soothing after the unnerving day the spy had.

Even if he had chosen to debase himself by modulating his vocal processor like those human "rednecks".

"Guess ye'er right again."

The spy made a very human face of distaste. "I wish I wasn't," he said and a small part of him was pleased to hear how proper his processor sounded in comparison to his friend's. Long gone were the days where he thought himself better than the scout, but he had always loved their differences in accents, not as a way to prove that he was better, but simply as a juxtaposition to their backgrounds. Hound had seen right through his spoiled exterior to the scared mechanoid that was so far from his comfort zone.

Hound chuckled, the sensory cords around his mandibles swaying at the motion. They spy conceded that he probably chose a "redneck" accent because it matched his root form and those silly sensory cords.

He would never say it out loud to the scout, but they had very much grown on him...at least enough that a rattle of disgust no longer raced down his spinal plates.

"Well," Hound said at last as the plumes of dust began to fade into the desert night. "We can't lose them again and _someone_ needs to let the rest of them know." He was looking at the spy out of the corners of his optics, his face far too innocent.

The spy glared at him openly. "There are such things as _comms_," he said, trying to affect his long-forgotten loftiness but it was a lost cause. Hound always had and always would see through him.

Hound reached out with a massive arm and slapped his shoulder in a human gesture of camaraderie. "Yup, which is why you'll keep in contact with _me_ while I bring the rest of them."

Grumbling a bit more for the sake of appearances, the spy transformed and began picking his way down the winding road toward the main highway. "_You owe me,_" he threatened over the comms to his friend. "_I expect some high-quality high-grade in the med-bay when they're repairing me after I get my _ass blown off!"

His friend, Unmaker take him, roared with laughter as he transformed and slid down the hill, completely ignoring the road that the other had to take. "_It was one time! _One time!"

"_And it's written on my spark core!_" Reaching the main road, the spy shifted into gear and tore off after the Decepticons' trail.

Hound continued to chuckle over the comm, shifting their line to a lower priority so that he could hail the rest of his group. He shifted into gear and tore down the quiet mountain roads back to the Autobot camp.

The spy had been his secret. He hadn't been following Prime's message; he had been following his old friend. When he landed, it was simply bad luck that he had been found by the Autobots before he could find the spy.

Not that he minded too much. With the war more or less over, Prime had given him permission to explore, something he had fully intended on doing before he had been wrapped up in a rescue mission. Which is, of course, how he had found his friend.

It was a strange coincidence that he knew he _shouldn't_ look over, but something had rattled the mechanoid enough that Hound didn't want to press him too much. There was something very strange going on but if his friend said that he shouldn't worry about it, he wouldn't.

That didn't mean that he wouldn't leave it in the back of his processor to work itself out. None of them had made it this long in through the way to leave things to _coincidence_, after all.

Thinking back to Bumblebee's injury at the Battle of Tyger Pax, Hound knew that he couldn't trust to _luck_ either...and they had been disturbingly lucky on this hunt. It sent an uncomfortable chill down his steering column that wasn't caused by the cool night air.

As he approached the camp, he pushed those thoughts to the back of his processor hailed the hunters.

* * *

_**La figlia di generale di brigata**_**: (Italian) "the brigadier general's daughter" from Google Translate. **

_**La madre vendicativa**_**: (Italian) "the vengeful mother" from Google Translate. **

**Nonverbal comm****: Cybertronians have two primary types of comms: verbal and nonverbal comms. The first is like a telephone call where they 'speak' to one another. This can be through audible or inaudible (internal) means where these terms refer to the ability of others around them hearing them speak. Cybertronian nonverbal comms are much like "texting" for humans where text is typed and "sent" to the recipient or recipients. **

_**La Caccia ha inizio**_**: (Italian) "The Hunt begins" from Google Translate.**

**IRT (infrared thermography)****: thermographic cameras usually detect radiation in the long-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum and produce images of that radiation, called thermograms. **

**Romeo-Hot Rod/Folgore-Svelto****: Did you expect Hot Rod to be mentally stable? He alternates between three "primary" holoforms. Especially after the deaths of the rest of the Scordato family, he used his holoform to show his mental state though whether or not it was entirely intentional is debatable. "Hot Rod/Folgore" was his "default" setting when he was calm enough to pretend that he was stable. Romeo (a cream-colored Spinone Italiano) is when he felt particularly unsettled; Svelto ("slender" in Italian; he is a Saluki) was for when he was having a very difficult time coping with something. **

**Alternate forms****: I know that it's canon that alternate forms are based on mass. Call me lazy, but I didn't particularly want to keep looking up the masses of different cars when I chose their alternate forms, so I came up with a different idea...their **_**ideal**_** form in terms of armor density and mobility is based on their mass, but they have a large range of forms they can take. For forms that are smaller than their ideal, they are denser and more tightly "packed"; for larger forms, their armor is spread thinner, making them more vulnerable in their alternate form. Of course, they do have an upper and lower limit of forms that they could transform into which would prevent them from functioning or disguising themselves efficiently. **

**I also couldn't justify to myself having everyone transform into desert Jeeps for all of their off-roading adventures. **


	20. Wait

Nicole watched Erin with growing concern. Something about her seemed...off lately.

Despite her blindness, Erin had always been rather competent in moving around. Izzy, useless furball that he was, only occasionally helped her and if you ignored her long cane and her milky eyes, she seemed as competent as the average person on the street.

Lately, though...lately she'd seemed listless, had stumbled around much more than she normally did. When Nicole led her around the house (a lot more than she had needed to before), Erin had clutched her tightly and had run into things that Nicole had once taken for granted. She tripped over uneven ground, had tripped over rugs and the little raised panel that divided the carpet of Chief's living room with his hardwood kitchen flooring. When they had gone outside, she had tripped over the floorboards of the outside deck, had slipped on the little divot on the cement front steps where family lore had it that Chief's late wife had scared away a burglar by shooting her rifle into the ground (the round had clipped the bottom step and had embedded itself in the gravel walk); the other she had subdued by cracking the heavy wooden butt of her gun into his face and for a few hours had left a russet red stain of blood next to the chip in the concrete.

"Just feeling a little...stretched," Erin had said, waving off her concern when Nicole had asked.

"Stretched," Nicole had repeated, her tone telling Erin how much she didn't believe her. The blind girl offered her a crooked smile, sightless eyes settling on a point a foot off Nicole's left shoulder. "That's a good one. You got another?" Erin had just offered a tense chuckle and said nothing more.

To say that Nicole was frustrated was an understatement.

It didn't stop her from giggling when Erin walked face-first into a wall. "Miscount!" the girl yelled, rubbing her nose almost absently. When she first began moving around after she was blinded, everyone had treated her like glass, frustrating her to no end. Everyone seemed to want to hold her, to carry her around, to coddle her and smother her with their attention. _How will I learn if they do?_ Erin had asked Nicole privately one night. _If you were to leave me, how can I function on my own?_

_Never,_ Nicole had wanted to say. _I won't _ever _leave you_. She hadn't though, unsure that she could keep her promise but she did hover over Erin as she tottered around their house, still getting used to her cane. It was their compromise: Nicole's presence over (or at) her shoulder let everyone else think that Erin was fine and allowed Erin to lean on her if she needed to. At last, Erin was free to explore her world of darkness, attended by Nicole as little more than her shadow and witness.

Still, moving around without use of the eyes was a difficult task and Erin accomplished this, in places she would stay for an extended period of time, by counting her steps. If she ran into something, she would yell _sorry, I miscounted_ just so no one would come running. Eventually, it had been shorted to _miscount_! Once she had gotten better at moving around, it had become their private joke.

It took Erin some time to get used to being blind but once she did, she stopped bumping into things. In the past few months, Nicole had only heard her _miscount_ a scarce handful of times, usually because someone had moved something...but Nicole had been witness to five _miscount_s in the past day and had heard Erin have two more when she wasn't in the same room.

"Are you sure?" Nicole asked quietly, aware how much her step-sister hated that question. Erin tolerated it from her because she was her unofficial aide and had by her presence freed her from their well-meaning family.

The blind girl turned toward her and smiled. This time she was three feet off Nicole's right shoulder, further off than she normally was. "Just a bit stretched," she repeated. "Nothing to worry about."

* * *

Maggie filled in Keller as Dead End drove while Katie sat alone in the front seat. Dead End obligingly tilted her chair back just a bit to allow her to catch a nap, something that didn't escape Keller's sharp eyes.

"She's deaf," Maggie told him quietly. "Her ear implant things were crushed in the attack so she can't hear us. Thundercracker's been doing a good job of translating for us."

They were quiet for a while, passing the time by trying to rub feeling back into Keller's bound hands. Neither of them wanted to bring up more of their captivity, but eventually Maggie's curiosity got the better of her.

"It was Keynes," Keller said, glancing at Katie as if afraid the woman would hear him. "The general. Her father."

Maggie glanced at the woman who winced as Dead End rattled over a pothole. How a _pothole_ was on a road in the middle of a desert was beyond Maggie, but she supposed that anything could and did occasionally happen. Katie brought up a bruised and dirty arm to rub her injured shoulder before she went still again.

It had felt like a lifetime ago that she and Katie had sped across the desert in Bluestreak's cab. She had leaned out of the window and flipped off the newcomer to the base, some stuffy Army man with commendations and medals glittering on his pristine uniform. "That was her father?" she asked. Hadn't Katie told her that?

Yes; he had been the reason for Maggie and Bluestreak "abducting" Katie. _Everyone has daddy issues,_ Sam had joked to her once and Mikaela had looked disgusted, covering the curl of her lip by sipping from her drink.

"He abducted me from a meeting," Keller said, making a face. "No one knew that he had gone rogue so no one suspected when he got in the car with me. That's how I ended up here. Well, in a nutshell at least."

Maggie found herself nodding. Why the general had gone rogue was beyond her. But a general with enough clearance to know about the Autobots could do a great deal of damage if no one caught him.

"I'm afraid for Major Lennox," Keller admitted to her and she was startled by his candor. He looked far older and more tired than he normally did, seeming to droop in his torn and dusty suit jacket, hands red and swollen from his glowing binds. "What can they do to him if they can get to me?" _What about Sam and Mikaela?_ His sad eyes asked her silently. _What protection do they have?_

It all made a twisted sort of sense. Bumblebee was obvious and documented as Sam's guardian. Finding and subduing him would be easy - they had done so once before.

They fell into uneasy silence until they began to slow and pull into a pit stop area. It was an old gas station and convenience store that was closed for the night. "Dead End," Maggie called. "What are we doing here?"

Dead End sighed gustily, reminding her so much of Eeyore that she fought not to laugh. "In light of our newest...acquisition...Soundwave _suggested_ that we gather more supplies."

Even in the early morning light the cars were distinct enough for her to recognize. The ones named Wildrider and Breakdown zipped past as Dead End slowed down. Wildrider skidded recklessly around the convenience store and crashed deliberately into the lonely gas pumps. Gasoline sprayed everywhere like a geyser as the Decepticon whooped. Transforming as he continued to spin, the black Camaro spun and kicked the wreckage of the pump again, his armor glittering with gasoline.

Breakdown slammed into the glass doors of the convenience store, screaming with glee over Dead End's speakers. They slowed and stopped, watching the rampant destruction. "Let them get it out of their systems," Dead End moaned and Katie glanced back at Maggie, probably feeling the rumble of the speakers near her feet. _Wait,_ Maggie motioned and the other woman nodded.

It took a while for the dust to settle and Dead End finally approached the destroyed convenience store, unlocking his doors. Breakdown and Wildrider did doughnuts in the parking lot, whooping out loud and over Dead End's speakers. "Dead End," Maggie asked as she got out of the car. "Can you undo Keller's restraints?"

"My orders say that he is to remained restrained," the Decepticon replied.

Maggie's lips went thin and Katie glanced at her, cocking her head to the side. Her hazel eyes were nearly invisible in the flickering light of the lamppost but Maggie thought that she was staring at her lips, trying to piece together the conversation. "Whose orders?" Maggie demanded, her anger making her forget to slow down for Katie.

"Demands from the symbiotes," their ride said after a brief pause. "Soundwave backed their concern since he was the major instigator in the death of Barricade's Frenzy."

_Later_, she mouthed to Katie who shrugged and then winced when the movement jarred her injured shoulder. "Fine," she said. "John, stay here, okay?" The man likewise shrugged. "Will you keep him safe, Dead End?"

She realized that it seemed as strange as asking a butcher to take care of a pet pig, but the Decepticon didn't seem fazed by the request. But then, she was beginning to suspect that not much fazed Dead End. "As much as my orders allow me, I will do so," the Camaro told her quietly.

"Thank you," Maggie whispered and gestured at Katie to follow her. They ransacked the dilapidated building for more supplies, bagging their haul and carrying them out to pack in Dead End's trunk. Once he had figured out what they wanted, he backed his trunk up to the broken doors of the convenience store and waited patiently for them to finish.

Given the freedom to collect all they needed, Maggie and Katie grabbed first aid supplies, Clorox wipes, more canned goods, bottles of water, and all manner of things that would make life easier for however long they had left. Katie grabbed dried fruit and a few pieces of fresh fruit to improve their diets and picked at the few cans of vegetables, giving Maggie a pointed look. She discarded some of Maggie's instant soup choices, pointing at the sodium listed on the can and miming _drinking_. She tapped three fingers to her mouth and pointed at the bottles of water on the shelf nearby.

"Too much salt, it'll make us more thirsty, got it," Maggie said and was more careful with her selections.

Katie got an armful of cigarettes and a few packets of lighters, to Maggie's concern but she shook her head emphatically when Maggie made a halfhearted motion to veto the choice. They found a sling for Katie and a few touristy T-shirts so they could change out of at least some of their dirty, dingy clothes. This they did while huddled in the back of the destroyed store. One of the first things to go had been their sense of privacy but they still tried to keep up appearance, especially now that they had John Keller along for the ride.

As the sun was finally peeking over the horizon the leader of their caravan, a big black and violet semitruck that looked like it could be Optimus's twin, loomed over the broken convenience store. This four scarlet optics seemed bright as flares in his dark face. "We're moving on," he roared at them. "Hurry up!"

Shaking her head and deciding against arguing, Maggie tugged Katie's sleeve and led her outside. The deaf woman discarded her apple with a flippant flick of her wrist and the fruit made the shards of glass rattle as it rolled off the edge of the curb. They climbed into Dead End's cab obediently and soon they were racing across the desert.

* * *

If the spy needed any indication of Decepticon presence, the destroyed gas station and convenience store was like a big glowing beacon. While they raced across the desert, he kept pace with them at the very edge of his sensors. It may seem strange but he was concerned with catching up to them, as he most certainly couldn't take an entire gestalt by himself, _especially_ if they combined.

Still, he had ample warning by the circling of jets high overhead (they formed telltale contrails and distrails in the moist atmosphere of this Primus-forsaken planet) and had pulled into a nearby town to lay low until he felt his sensors prickle.

The convenience store had been looted and destroyed and the pumps razed to the ground. By the large footprints in the dust and gravel, it had been by mechs in their root modes. There were other tire marks nearby, confirming his expectation that they were following all five of the Stunticons on the ground.

He took a moment to stretch out his legs, exploring the area. In the wreckage of the convenience store, he found dirty clothing and discarded hangers - evidence that humans had changed their clothes there. He took a picture and put it on the side to send all at once to Hound and the remaining hunters.

There were other obvious things lying around that proved to him that the humans were there: a discarded suit jacket whose side had been slit, a box that had once held a medical sling, a few open wrappers of candy and instant food, an upended basket of fruit, sticky footprints where shoes had passed through a cooler of sodas that had been crushed by a chunk of ceiling.

Carefull not to disturb anything major, the mechanoid took photos of everything and sent them all to Hound with the coordinates of his location.

Will you wait for us this time? Hound sent by nonverbal comm. He added a human "emoji" of what was supposed to be a happy face.

The spy shook his head even though no one was there to see and transformed, kicking himself into gear. That's funny. Tell me another.

Lol, Hound replied immediately. See you later?

If he could, the spy would have smiled. Now _that's_ a good one.

* * *

Armonie used the twilight hours to go over her gear and check herself over. Obligingly, Hot Rod made his windows opaque as she stripped down to her undergarments, undoing layers of lightweight armor designed by Saetta and human-made cloth.

For an advanced robotic organism that had a remarkable imagination, Saetta was surprisingly _terrible_ at anything relating to textiles and sewing. It was a miracle that he was able to make her armor.

"_You should be resting,_" Hot Rod said disapprovingly though it was halfhearted at best.

Armonie grunted. "Probably," she agreed. "But I don't know when I'll have another free moment." Her companion grumbled in annoyance but subsided. "Is Jordan sleeping?"

"_She is speaking to Prowl,_" Hot Rod replied. "_But she should be sleeping soon._"

Their comms crackled. "_My source sent me coordinates_," Hound told them. "_I'll forward it to all of you._"

Armonie casually perused the message and the pictures included. "Looks like there may be a dental imprint on that apple_._" she said privately to Hot Rod who grunted in agreement. "And I'd like to take a look at those footprints - the human ones - in the store."

"_Your wish is my command,_" Hot Rod told her quietly.

Her comm pinged with a message from Saetta. She accepted it and opened a line between her, Saetta, and Hot Rod. "_I know what your dark windows mean,_" Saetta told her once the line was open and he was sure that she was listening. "_How are you holding up?_"

She considered lying but thought against it. No matter how much she wanted to, lying to Saetta about her gear was a _Very Bad Idea_. "The interface aches," she said instead. "I was going to take a look at it and then rub more ointment on it."

"_How much ointment from Sirena do you have?_" the eclectic engineer asked.

A flick of her wrist brought out the mentioned ointment and she weighed the jar. "Half a jar. It should be enough for this hunt."

"_What makes you think so?_" Hot Rod asked.

Armonie smiled thinly. "Hound's mysterious source may not have visual contact, but he is keeping them at the edge of his scanning range if I was to make a guess. We're not far, so our hunt shouldn't last _too _much longer." She paused. "I think they may be on their way over or thinking about it," she admitted. "They didn't say anything the last time I spoke to them."

It seemed like years had passed instead of just a few days. Two days? Three? Was that all the time that had passed? _I better text them,_ she thought, pulling out her cell phone. There were messages from all of them, all asking the same question. _What is going on_?

She put all of them (and Hot Rod) on a group message and tersely explained the situation. They all clamored for her attention like over-excited children. Watching their messages swarm her screen, she allowed herself a moment to sit back and enjoy their bickering. Sometimes she thought that they bickered as much for her amusement as for theirs.

**Sirena (to group): **Are you okay?

**Chips (to group):** Who else is with you?

**Rasor (to group):** Better you than me!

**Sirena (to group): **_Rasor!_

**Rasor (to group):** _What?_

**Phantom (to group):** _This is why we can't have nice things!_

**Rasor (to group):** That or we steal them.

**Drago (to group): **_Rasor!_

**Rasor (to group): **Why are you all picking on me? If I remember correctly, _all of you_ stole shit _with me_. You have _no room_ to talk!

**Sirena (to group):** Back on topic...Army - _are you okay_?

**Chips (to group):** How's the arm?

**Rasor (to group):** And the voices in your head?

**Drago (to group):** Answer Chip and Sirena's questions; ignore Rasor.

**Rasor (to group):** Hey!

Hot Rod didn't answer but she saw that Drago added Saetta to their group "chat".

**Saetta (to group): **We have a few other Autobots. Prowl and his human partner, Hound, Jazz, and Bluestreak. One of Hound's sources is currently leading us but he's being close-lipped - to use a human phrase - as to who it is.

**Phantom (to group):** _Spah!_ (this was accompanied by a sound-byte of a man with a Southern accent saying the same thing)

**Chips (to group): **Spies are bad news but I guess if Hound trusts him, he can't be all bad, right?

**Rasor (to group):** Just _mostly_.

**Drago (to group):** _RASOR!_

**Rasor (to group):** _WHAT?_

**Rasor (to group): **See?

**Rasor (to group): **See how annoying that is?

_**/Drago has removed Rasor from the group conversation/**_

**Rasor (to Drago and Armonie): **You bastard.

**Drago (to Rasor and Armonie): **You deserved and still deserve it. Now shut up and maybe one of us will take pity on you and fill you in on the conversation.

**Armonie (to group): **My interface is aching. I'm about to apply some of Sirena's lotion to it and recalibrate.

**Sirena (to group): **You need another recalibration?

**Saetta (to group):** You didn't tell me that you needed recalibration.

**Folgore (to group):** Why does it matter what she does or doesn't do?

**Armonie (to group):** Folgore!

**Armonie (to group):** You didn't ask if I needed recalibration.

**Armonie (to group):** It's just a precaution - I didn't notice anythign wrong.

**Armonie (to group):** _Anything_.

**Sirena (to group):** You make it tempting to chase after you two.

**Drago (to group):** You two get into far too much trouble.

**Phantom (to group):** Did you expect anything different, boss?

**Chips (to group):** Any idea why the autobot base is locked down?

**Saetta (to group):** You're monitoring the Autobot base?

**Phantom (to group):** Well…

**Phantom (to group):** Sort of.

**Folgore (to group):** What do you mean "sort of"?

**Phantom (to group):** You know..._sort of_.

**Drago (to group):** Phantom. Answer the question.

**Phantom (to group):** Well...we're Autobots, right?

**Phantom (to group):** Or...ex-Autobots?

**Phantom (to group):** Whatever we are...I thought it would be prudent to keep an optic out...so I had feelers out on the human government dealing with the Autobots - NEST.

**Armonie (to group):** Nest?

**Chips (to group):** Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty - it's an acronym...not a particularly _creative _one, but an acronym nonetheless.

**Folgore (to group):** It _does_ sound pretty dumb.

**Drago (to group):** To the point, please.

**Phantom (to group):** _Fine_.

**Phantom (to group):** Ruin good storytelling.

**Phantom (to group):** The human government recently disbanded it - within the past 24 hours - and are debating whether or not they want to bomb the base out of oblivion, whether or not there are still human personnel there.

A chill went down Armonie's spine that had nothing to do with her nudity. As she checked the interface that Jordan had grabbed earlier, where her arm was the most tender, she opened a verbal comm line through Hot Rod to her friends. Opening the comm through Hot Rod would ensure that it was secure; Hot Rod would listen in to keep informed while at the same time ensuring that no one else picked it up or could unscramble the coding.

"Say that again, Phantom?"

* * *

The spy's comm crackled and he answered almost absently. If Hound deemed his security and safety important enough to ignore to contact him over verbal comm, then it must be important.

"_Did you know about the Autobot base?_" his abhorrent accent dropped for a more clipped speech pattern. The spy had called that slow drawl a fake from the start but no one would believe him. If only they could hear Hound now, his anger stripping away the mask he wore.

Briefly, the spy considered lying. But it had been an unspoken agreement between them.

_I lie all the time...it's a part of my job description...but never to you_, his memory core parroted back at him from a long time ago.

"Yes," he said.

Hound was quiet for a long moment, dangerously leaving their line open. The spy's hologram tapped a pack of cigarettes against his lips, tucking his legs up on his hood. He could still "feel" the Decepticons prickling at the very edge of his scanning range. It was time to lay low; he had skirted far too close to them for too long.

The plus side was that he knew that only one jet was circling above, no doubt watching over the convoy. In the early morning light, he lit up a cigarette and watched the smoke waft into the air. For the first time in his very long life, he wondered what it would be like to be _organic_, so fragile but full of fire.

_What would it be like to actually taste and smell this?_ He kept up the motion, bringing the lit cigarette to his lips and taking a deep "drag". The smoke tickled the particles of his holoform but ultimately it didn't bring him the heady rush that it would give a human. He "exhaled", watching the currents and eddies in the smoke as it left his holoform's mouth.

"_Why didn't you tell me?_" Hound whispered.

The spy took another long drag of the cigarette, disappointed that the cherry at the end didn't flare brighter as it would with a human; he didn't breathe, after all. "I didn't want to worry you."

Hound's silence told him what his friend thought of that line of logic. "_You didn't stop to think that it may _motivate me?" He sighed over the comm but it was fonder and the spy felt more at ease. "Cariad," the scout breathed. "_Sometimes bad news can inspire courage, not fear._"

Smiling, the spy leaned back against his own windshield and looked up at the sky. He could see the shadowy form of the jet make another pass before continuing on. "That's why I have you to set me straight."

"_You know who I'd choose,_" Hound added, a hint of his heavy brogue back in his voice. "_If it came down to it._"

The spy snuffed out the cigarette, making a face as it smeared a spot of black and grey ash on his dark blue paint. Unlike most of his kind save perhaps Hound, he did not choose a recent model of his disguise. New, shiny things drew attention; a plain and worn 1999 Honda CRV wouldn't draw as much attention as a well-polished Maserati. "I'll make it so that you never have to," the spy murmured as they signed off.

He would lay low, he decided. Just for an hour or so; maybe catch a few winks, as the humans said. Setting an internal timer to "wake" him, he settled down for a defrag cycle while he waited for the Decepticons to put some distance between them. So long as he could see the circling jet, he knew he was fine.

* * *

Making repairs and recalibrations was difficult in a moving car, but Hot Rod was considerate and they had long since developed a system for road hazards. Once Saetta had realized their issues, he had enlisted the help of Sirena and together they had created an interface for the two of them.

Plugged into Hot Rod, Armonie could "sense" the topography of the road ahead and move accordingly.

_Tastes like licking a Euro_, she confided in him as she always did when she plugged in.

As he always did, Hot Rod didn't dignify that with an answer. She smacked her lips mockingly at him and set about making her calibrations.

_Stop scanning me_, she added when she felt the itching wave of his scan, something she was only aware of when connected to him as she was.

_You're running low on energy,_ Hot Rod told her unrepentantly, bringing up the results of his scan and _shoving_ it along their connection. In her mind's eye, Armonie could see the projected image of a battery. _62%, 62%, 62%_ blinked in orange in its barrel.

Armonie rolled her eyes and focused on the miniature screwdriver in her hand. The delicate interface between her skin and prosthetic was red and swollen, causing her to hiss a breath between her teeth.

_How bad is it?_ Hot Rod demanded.

Ignoring him, Armonie shook out her elbow, feeling unbalanced with the weight she had grown used to. She dipped her fingers into Sirena's salve and began kneading it into her skin. Hot Rod's holoform appeared beside her, tangible from the waist up so that he wouldn't disturb her work station on his backseat. Taking her arm in his, he dug his thumbs into her sore muscles.

Armonie hissed again, fighting the urge to tense up with the pain. She breathed out as the knots crunched beneath his steady and merciless hands and the ache began to fade from her awareness. _You've been overworking it,_ Hot Rod said, his honey-colored eyes accusing though his hands remained firm and gentle on her skin. _Let me see your leg._

_Bossy, bossy,_ Armonie teased, picking up a larger screwdriver and setting to work on her next interface at mid-thigh. It was disorienting, being pulled in so many directions for her attention, but she welcomed the distraction.

When Hot Rod deemed her arm finished, he helped her with the last screws binding her interface to her skin and removed her prosthetics. At his gesture, she stretched out in the seat and sighed in simultaneous pain and bliss as he began kneading her tired muscles.

Over her hardline connection to Hot Rod, she was able to wirelessly (to an extent) connect to her phone. The Guardian Gestalt had texted her again and she reviewed them. They bickered amongst each other, debating TV shows, actors and actresses, and the newest video games. A new conversation request from Drago drew her attention.

_**/Drago has added Arbalet to group/**_

_**/Drago has added Folgore to group/**_

_**/Drago has added Armonie to group/**_

**Drago (to group):** Arbalet, these are the ones I was telling you about.

**Arbalet (to group):** I've heard a lot about you. Drago speaks very highly of you both.

**Folgore (to group):** …

**Armonie (to group):** I'm sure he made up most of it. He tends to do that.

**Arbalet (to group):** Xa-xa-xa!

**Arbalet (to group):** Then he hasn't changed much.

Armonie's brows rose and then she flinched when Hot Rod's thumbs found a particularly sensitive spot. With her good arm, she began rubbing her liniment into her inflamed skin.

**Folgore (to group):** Drago? Change? Perish the thought.

**Drago (to group):** I have been speaking to Arbalet for the past week or so.

**Drago (to group):** Just catching up, you know?

**Drago (to group):** I think he could help you.

**Drago (to group):** At least, I hope so…

**Arbalet (to group):** My team and I have been hanging out in Europe, doing some exploration.

**Arbalet (to group):** I know how corny that sounds, trust me.

**Folgore (to group):** Get to the point.

Armonie glared at her companion whose eyes flashed. Connected to him, she could "feel" the pings from the other Autobots. She didn't pry, but she was curious what they were saying on their private lines as they were not audible on her verbal comms.

Fortunately for her (and Hot Rod's) patience, Arbalet didn't seem bothered by Hot Rod's tone. She supposed that being the commander of a team meant that he would need to have a lot of patience. Lord knew that Drago had the patience of a saint from dealing with his hellions.

**Arbalet (to group):** I'm not sure at what point in your hunt you are in, but if we hurry, we can be there in a few hours. Shorter if we push ourselves.

**Armonie (to group):** What kept you from finding the Autobots before?

**Arbalet (to group):** We were tired of war.

**Arbalet (to group):** We were created in the middle of it as another combiner team.

**Arbalet (to group):** I thought that we could take this chance to see if we could be something other than soldiers.

**Folgore (to group):** Then why are you volunteering to do just that?

**Arbalet (to group):** Boredom, partially. Ognemjot will probably be murdered and Naletchik soon after if not the other way around.

**Armonie (to group):** I don't want to ask you to do anything that goes against your beliefs, but we won't turn down the help.

**Arbalet (to group):** It's no trouble. As I said, we were sparked as warriors.

**Armonie (to group):** That doesn't mean that it's what you believe in.

**Arbalet (to group):** …

**Folgore (to Armonie):** Stop trying to scare them away!

**Armonie (to Folgore):** I'm not, but I'm not going to let them throw away everything they're doing right now.

**Folgore (to Armonie):** If they show up, we can leave.

**Arbalet (to group):** Your concern is appreciated.

**Arbalet (to group):** Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't volunteer for something like this, but these aren't normal circumstances.

**Armonie (to group):** You would risk life and limb for two humans?

**Folgore (to group):** Three. Secretary of Defense John Keller is missing as well.

**Arbalet (to group):** Whether or not it is our belief isn't the issue at this point.

**Arbalet (to group):** We are Autobots, whether we actively participate or believe in the War or not. Humans are the allies of the Autobots and it is our duty to uphold that treaty.

**Armonie (to group):** Even if it goes against your own beliefs?

**Armonie (to group):** Even to the death of your own kind?

Arbalet didn't answer for a few minutes and Armonie took that moment to concentrate on recalibrating her arm. It was a skill she picked up quickly, even with one hand. Fortunately it was her dominant hand, even if it was made weaker by her other injuries.

"Make sure you put ointment on that arm, too," Hot Rod told her out loud, steadying her prosthetic while she worked. "I know it's been bothering you."

Armonie made a face but continued working steadily. "How far to the coordinates?"

"Another hour or so if we keep this pace. Jordan may want to stop for a nip," Hot Rod added, curling the upper lip of his holoform to show his disgust.

The woman snorted. "Or other human needs." Hot Rod subsided with a grumble but tightened a screw in her wrist without being asked. "I think we can get all of this done...it'll be tight but we can get to combat readiness in an hour, don't you think?"

Her phone pinged - Arbalet had finally answered.

**Arbalet (to group):** I believe that freedom is the right of all sentient beings.

**Arbalet (to group):** I believe that Optimus Prime deserves the respect I show him and if these are his allies, then I am obligated to help return them safe and sound.

**Arbalet (to group):** We may have been a peaceful race before, but this long war has taught us to hate until fighting is all we know.

**Arbalet (to group):** I'm sure that a few of them believe in _something_ but the vast majority exist only for mayhem, chaos, and destruction. I like to think that we're above that.

**Armonie (to group):** A pretty answer.

**Armonie (to group):** I'm sure you know of the time frame we're stuck with; I can't in good conscience deny more help.

**Drago (to group):** Ah ah ah!

**Drago (to group):** You owe me fifty euros!

**Arbalet (to group):** I never agreed to that bet!

**Folgore (to group):** _What bet?_

**Drago (to group):** He bet that you wouldn't want his help. For some reason he thought you were too proud to accept.

**Drago (to group):** But I know you

**Drago (to group):** So now he owes me fifty.

**Armonie (to group):** I'm disappointed in you.

**Armonie (to group):** So

**Armonie (to group): **Utterly

**Armonie (to group):** Disappointed

**Arbalet (to group):** Dont' be mad at him! I instigated it!

**Arbalet (to group):** Im sorry!

**Armonie (to group):** You could have _easily_ gotten more!

**/Armonie has left the group/**

**Drago (to group):** AH-AH-AH-AH!

**/Folgore has left the group/**

**Drago (to Armonie):** This is why I love you.

**Armonie (to Drago):** And I, you, Drago.

**Armonie (to Drago):** Give my love to the rest of Guardian.

**Armonie (to Drago):** Don't tell Folgore!

* * *

It was nearly noon by the time the spy was confident that the Decepticons had stopped. Hound had mentioned that one of the humans, Hot Rod's human partner Armonie, had been in contact with friends in Italy and found out that reinforcements were on their way from Russia: five jets, some of the few Autobot aerial corps.

The hunters had stopped further back at the gas station and had made their own investigation. By now he was used to having his quick investigations double-checked by a team that had more time than he and didn't feel the pang of annoyance that he would have a few thousand years ago.

He took the time to explore the area, finding abandoned areas, human habitations, and the best places to hide...or to fight. As he waited for the Autobots to arrive, he tracked across the desert, finding places for jets to land, humans to sleep, and areas they could find food.

Once he finished a rough map (it would be polished off by Hound, who was much better at cavorting around this dusty desert), he found himself a hide and settled down to wait. It seemed far too lucky in his opinion, that the Decepticons hadn't picked up on him yet, had not begun to believe that they were being followed.

It was only a matter of time. Adjusting his holoform's bowtie, he lit up another cigarette. If anyone were to see him, he looked like a hipster out for a smoke in the desert wilderness in chase of the shot of a lifetime.

The whistling wind bore off the smoke of his cigarette, adding to the illusion that he was actually smoking. Now it was just a waiting game.

He brought the cigarette to his lips again.


	21. Arbalet

**I apologize for the weird schedule I've been on - my sister introduced me to LEGO Jurassic World and I've been binge-playing it far more than I should. Now that I'm nearly done (ish) playing it, I can focus more on this. **

**Next month will also be a weird schedule for this since I'll be preparing for NaNoWriMo. My goal is to have this finished by early October, but we'll see how that goes.**

**Thanks again for everyone who reads and reviews this. It's always so nice to see that someone is following the story!**

**~DC**

* * *

Hound sounded surprised when he commed them all to inform them that his informant had set up camp for them and had more information for them. When they arrived at the specified coordinates, a rather non-descript Honda CRV was waiting for them. A man was sitting on the hood of the car, a lit cigarette in his hand, looking like he belonged more in some swanky hipster cafe than a dusty desert peak.

The hipster sat up, brushing off dust from the rolled-up sleeves of his lavender button-down, tugging his charcoal vest. He took off his glasses and hooked one end into his breast pocket beside his plaid pocket square. Dropping the lit cigarette to the dusty ground, he ground it out with a converse-shod foot.

"You look remarkably well put-together for being out in the middle of the desert," Armonie said, stretching a stiff leg. Jordan had noticed at their last stop that she had been walking strangely and had held her right hand stiff against her side. Perhaps it was just a byproduct of being stuck in a car all day, but Hot Rod's Jeep-like form was relatively roomy and Jordan was sure that she had space enough to stretch out.

Still, it was none of her business and if Armonie caught her watching, she gave no sign. The only concession she gave aside from her limp was to occasionally ask Hot Rod or Jordan to help her manipulate objects around her when her stiff limbs failed her. Mindful now that her long sleeves and pants hid painful injuries, Jordan held her gently when her assistance was required.

"Well, there is no one else here to comment on my state of dress 'in the middle of the desert'," the man replied. His voice was higher than Jordan would expect and if she hadn't been watching him speak, she wouldn't have been able to tell for sure whether a man or woman were speaking.

But, she supposed, if this was indeed Hound's spy friend, he/she wasn't _technically_ a man or woman anyway.

"Only you." The spy's lips hooked up in a smirking smile that softened when he looked over at Hound. His piercing blue-green eyes crinkled slightly. "And only _you_, Hound, would choose a holoform of a fat Italian man in _Nevada!_"

Hound laughed deep from his holoform's belly. "He was a geology professor I encountered shortly after I landed. His personality was so much like mine that I felt like stealing his form."

"Not his identity, I hope," Prowl muttered, coming to stand beside Jordan.

"What's your name?" Jordan asked, digging an elbow into Prowl's side. Her partner glared at her, grinding his holoform's teeth.

The spy gave another of those hook-lipped smirks. "I've been called a lot of things," he said with a raunchy wink. "But you can call me Raoul - that's what I've been going by this past few months."

"You've been here a _few months?_" Bluestreak added, his holoform's lips thin. The spy tossed his head, hands in the pockets of his black slacks. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

The picture of ease, the spy shrugged. "I told Hound. Or does he not count as 'anyone'?"

Hound didn't look even a little repentant when Bluestreak glared at him. "No one ever asked," the scout pointed out. Jordan rolled her eyes at Armonie who nodded. "And he asked me not to tell in any case."

"We'll leave you boys to it," Armonie said, hooking her good arm around Jordan's. "Jordan and I will talk about more _constructive_ things." Hot Rod's form rippled and he became the curly-haired hunting hound from before. Jordan supposed that he felt that since Armonie had not counted him in her previous statement, his words weren't necessary. But by now she had learned that his grief had made Hot Rod act a little strange so she didn't dare psychoanalyze him.

The spy - Raoul, Jordan guessed, until he gave them another name - doffed an imaginary hat with another mocking smirk. "I'll never argue with a lady."

Jordan rolled her eyes again. "When you guys are done with your pissing contest, we can talk about how to rescue everyone."

"Or kill them," Armonie murmured.

Saetta, who had taken a little longer to get to their stop, appeared beside them. With no one else to see, he appeared once more in the guise of a middle-aged man with rainbow-dyed hair and beard. His stormy grey eyes were as cold as ice and his grin showed far too many teeth to be a nice smile. "I have some updated equipment for you," he said, glancing for a brief moment at Raoul as if to size him up before deeming him uninteresting and turning back to Armonie and Jordan. "And some updates for you, Armonie."

It took only a moment for Jordan to set up the tent, having gotten used to the motion after the past two nights of setting up and taking down. The tent had been a gift from her grandfather shortly before he passed. Given that two of his gifts had already come in handy for this hunt, it almost seemed that he had a vision of the future in his last moments. Or so she would think if she were a spiritual woman.

_Luck_, she thought to herself as she flipped the mallet in her hands and stood with a groan. _It was just luck._

Armonie had gone into Saetta's interior to speak privately and Hot Rod stared distrustfully at her from where he lay beside the engineer's front wheel. Pulling her gear out of her duffel bag, she laid a tarp out to protect her weapons from sand and went over each one.

Evans' Bite was fitted with Saetta's newest rounds, made to fit her grandfather's rifle. She loaded a few extra magazines with those bullets and then set the gun aside.

She checked her service gun even though she wouldn't be using it - one never knew when it would come in handy. Just in case, she loaded a few magazines of Saetta's flechette bullets before setting it aside. If she had to use the glock, then she would need all the help she could get.

Next was a rifle that Saetta had made for her or perhaps had repurposed and loaned to her. She saw the sad looks he gave it when she had it out in front of him, so she supposed it may have been the latter. Likely, it had a similar story to Armonie's sci-fi rifle.

Grumbling to himself, Prowl stalked over. "I can't wait to be rid of them," he muttered to her, flopping down beside her. Wordlessly he began packing magazines with rounds. "Life is simpler with just you."

Jordan glanced at the remaining Autobots as they bickered. They had disengaged their holoforms, all save Raoul, who sat on his hood and "smoked" another cigarette. "Almost tempting to pick up another vice."

"Don't," Prowl grunted, digging around in the small chest of ammo in front of him. "It's only slightly better than your current one."

It was refreshing; they rarely spoke of her drinking problem, even if Prowl didn't judge her for it. He hovered somewhere between her accountability person to keep her off alcohol and the voice of her temptation. Some days he seemed to encourage her alcoholism while some days he coached her away from the bottle. Personally, Jordan thought that Prowl wasn't entirely sure how to keep her from alcohol and accepted her lapses as his own failure.

They had a lot to talk about in that regard but neither of them particularly looked forward to that conversation; they simply weren't _talking _people.

Raoul glanced at them and tossed the box of cigarettes at her. The brisk wind caught it, preventing its forward motion; it landed at the edge of their blanket. "Nicotine doesn't do anything for me," Raoul said with an ironic smirk. "I can't even take a proper drag."

Jazz's holoform appeared beside them on the blanket, handing Jordan the cigarettes despite Prowl's glare. He picked up another magazine and began loading. "Not those," Jordan said, pulling the box of ammo away from him. "These." Obediently, Jazz removed the bullets and filled them with the correct ones. "What are they talking about?"

"Blue's mad because he wasn't aware that Raoul was on Earth," the dark-skinned man said breezily. "I guess he's feeling out of sorts knowing that there were so many of us that were undocumented. Illegally crossing into the US, and all." This was said with a wink.

"_Not true!_" Bluestreak yelled from somewhere behind his headlights.

Raoul leaned back against his windshield. "Look, this is all very _thrilling_, but shouldn't we be discussing strategy?" His light British accent made such a simple statement sound insulting.

"Shouldn't we wait for Armonie's jets?" Jordan asked.

"They're not _my_ anything," Armonie said, opening Saetta's door and stepping out. "You could call them 'friends-of-friends' if you prefer." Hot Rod, as the curly-haired hunting hound, shadowed her steps.

Jazz moved to make a spot for her and with a nod in thanks, Armonie took it and began taking out her own weapons and doing a systems check. "Do I need to go in your cab, too?" Jordan asked Saetta suspiciously as he set up his own area nearby.

"No," the engineer replied. "I just had different alterations I needed to do for Armonie." Like some shopkeeper at a flea market, Saetta began laying gear and weapons on the tarp in front of him. "These are for you, Jordan. Try on the armor so I can make sure it fits comfortably."

Obediently, Jordan stood and began taking off her outer layers. As Saetta and Armonie coached her through the many layers, the holoforms reappeared on the tarps nearby. "I like to think that in a past life I was a stripper," Jordan told Armonie dryly when she was down to her cotton panties and sports bra. "Raoul, is there anyone nearby to see me?"

"Aside from us?" the hipster drawled. "I have motion sensors around the area to make sure that no one hikes or drives nearby. My own sensors are checking the air and I'm tuned in to the communications towers at the airports nearby to make sure no one is flying near enough to see us." Making a face, the holoform sat up, letting his legs hang over the edge of his hood sidesaddle. "It's just us here, darling." He winked.

Jordan laughed and stretched while Prowl looked scandalized. "Good, because I'm sure I reek."

Armonie wrinkled her nose. "You don't smell very nice," she agreed, a hint of wickedness in her shark-like eyes. "But neither was Angelo after a football match. His feet could _kill_ \- we used to use his cleats to ward off pests. Compared to him, you're like a field of flowers."

Barking a laugh, Jordan slipped into the undersuit piece by piece. It reminded her very much of a catsuit or some spandex nightmare straight out of a comic book. As Armonie helped to arm her (Saetta refused to touch her for all he fluttered and fretted around the pair, insisting that it was highly inappropriate), Raoul slid off his hood and wandered over.

"You had more news for us?" Hound pressed, settling his holoform's great bulk down in the sand.

Raoul made a face. "I'm not sure I believe it myself, but I got a strange comm."

Aside from Armonie and Saetta's quiet murmuring over Jordan's armor fitting, no one said anything for a moment. "Well?" Bluestreak demanded. "Are you going to tell us about it?"

"_Hush!_" Armonie hissed at him over her shoulder. "You being an ass about it won't make him tell it any faster." She glanced at Raoul. "Hot Rod and I got a strange comm a month or so ago. What did yours say?"

Raoul's eyes narrowed thoughtfully at her. "It was a nonverbal back when no one but Hound knew I was here on this dirtball. Ah...no offense."

"It _is_ pretty dirty," Jordan said dryly, kicking at the sandy ground.

Armonie made a face but gestured over her shoulder for Raoul to continue. "I didn't answer it at first and I couldn't figure out who it was - it wasn't a code I recognized. Honestly, I almost ignored it completely; I'm glad I didn't." The holoform fidgeted before disappearing. It reappeared a moment later on a nearby rock, legs crossed in front of him. "The first things she told me were what I already knew." He told them about hacking into the human information network, watching the status changes regarding NEST and accessibility to the Autobot base.

They took a moment to pick through the information; Raoul, surprisingly helpful at this point, brought up visual displays of the information that meant very little to the humans but seemed to make a lot of sense to the Autobots. Armonie grabbed Jordan by her vest and shook her briskly, throwing the officer (_ex_-officer) off balance; there was surprising strength in the little Italian woman.

"Someone has been altering records," Prowl decided, sounding impatient. "At this point in time, we don't have the time nor the resources necessary to determine exactly who. We have to decide whether or not this is an important detail that we would like to pursue."

Bluestreak looked like he wanted to argue but eventually he caved. "Go on, Raoul."

"Then the conversation got weird," Raoul admitted. "I think I'm just overthinking this, or maybe it's just coincidence, but the next thing she told me was that _Copper, Rubies, and Railroad Spikes will not get you to Paradise_."

It sounded so silly and cliche that Jordan rolled her eyes again. Armonie frowned but said nothing, tugging the next layer of Jordan's armor across her chest and fastening the sides.

Raoul pointed to somewhere over Jordan's shoulder. "That way is Paradise Valley, Nevada. Their previous base was called Ruby Hill."

"Coincidence," Prowl said.

Armonie glanced up at Jordan and both women felt realization hit them simultaneously. "What does copper and railroad spikes have to do with anything?" Saetta asked curiously. "The whole phrase doesn't fit. You said it was a femme, Raoul?"

"Wait," Armonie said, voice coming out far sharper than she liked. Jordan winced at the sharp tone and loud voice. The Italian squeezed the ex-officer's bicep in apology. "Copper and a railroad spike...those were our...ah…"

"Souvenirs," Jordan supplied. "They were the only things of interest that we could take back from the last base. Copper...what was it?"

Raoul frowned. "_Copper, Rubies, and Railroad Spikes will not get you to Paradise_."

"Hot Rod and I received a message like that a few months ago," Armonie said, her left hand shaking. Jordan noticed with interest that her injured right arm didn't shake, remained steady as they checked the fit and buckles of the armor around her waist and hips. "_Liberty can wait - The Valley in the shadow of Death calls where the rows of grapes stretch endless into the horizons. Throw aside the Figs and Oaks - search for the Rose._"

All eyes were on her. With a flick of her wrist, she pulled out her phone and opened her messages. It didn't take long to find the message - she had taken screenshots of it and had saved it many times. Hot Rod had a backup as well because both of them wanted to be sure that they hadn't hallucinated the conversation.

"This is just getting too weird," Jordan said, running a hand through her messy hair.

Raoul nodded. "I thought so too, but it's what brought me here."

"What else did she say?" Armonie asked.

The holoform shrugged, toying with the cuffs of his buttondown. "She didn't say much more - she told me she _couldn't_ \- but she said she would buy us time. In return, she expects us to return the girls that were kidnapped and 'prevent the disaster of all'."

"Disaster of all?" Jazz echoed. "Now that just sounds melodramatic."

Raoul shrugged. "Those were her words, not mine." He clapped his hands once, decisively. "Let's move on. Just before they went into their base, I caught a glimpse. As I'm sure you're already aware, the Stunticons are there."

"We know that they're being carried around that way," Bluestreak agreed grudgingly. "They've already had to gather supplies once not even two days ago. I'm not sure why they felt that they needed more."

"Maybe there's another captive with them?" Raoul asked mildly, running a hand through his hair. He ran a finger along the braids on either side of his undercut mohawk and in the trail of his fingers his hair turned blue, red, blond, and then returned to black. "Something else I noticed...where is the Secretary of Defense?"

They were quiet for a while, the silence broken only by Armonie's low murmurs to Jordan as she helped her don and fit the armor. Armonie glanced down at her phone. "Arbalet texted me. They are approaching and will reach us in about an hour."

"They text you?" Hound asked, brows furrowing.

"Air-ballet?" Jordan echoed.

Armonie's lips twitched. "It's Russian - all evidence I have of him says that he and his team had been in Europe, most likely Russia or countries that speak Russian. Hopefully they've come up with better names in English - I'm not sure how we well we would do with…" she squinted at her phone. "_Pikirovshhik_."

With crude words, Jordan told her what she thought of saying a name like that; Prowl looked away, seemingly mortified at her vulgarity.

Raoul laughed and spread out his hands. The gesture was needless, as creating another holoform, a map of light, didn't require such motions from him. Soft blue light blanketed the ground near where the humans had set up their stations. It fractured into neat grids and then rose as if by some magnetism into peaks and valleys. "I'm not the best at cavorting around the desert," Raoul said, jerking his thumb at his physical body. "Honda CRV's aren't really made for dirt roads for all they look like it or those human commercials seem to show and I'm not the best at tracking."

"I thought spies were supposed to be good at _everything_," Bluestreak said, taking a jab that had Jazz making a face; Raoul looked entirely unruffled.

"They must be able to _do_ everything enough to keep them alive," Jazz corrected. He gestured to the rough-looking map, one that reminded Jordan of an old video game with blocky graphics. "He did pretty well for not being a scout or tracker and we don't need a whole lot more than what he's already plotted for us."

Bluestreak looked shocked and then apologetic. "I'm sorry, Jazz," he murmured. "I forgot…"

"We need to get along better," Prowl observed. "We can't keep trading jabs at each other like this. Who knows what would happen?"

"Let's get them on the comm," Saetta suggested. "Then we can start planning with them."

Jordan fished out her throat mic but noticed that Armonie pulled out a separate device. She wrapped the strap around her neck; with a magnetic _click_ it snapped into place. The second piece was a small cord that reminded Jordan of an earphone jack for an old portable CD player. This she tucked behind her ear and stretched her jaw.

Shaking her head, Jordan finished putting on her throat mic and resolved to wear it for the rest of the hunt. "I'm in. Testing."

"_Welcome to the party,_" Prowl said, a slight smile in his voice. He continued to load magazines on the blanket.

Armonie clicked her tongue. "Saetta, her cuisse doesn't fit right," the Italian woman said. So cued the awkwardness of having Saetta and Armonie kneeling at crotch-level in front of her legs. Prowl looked scandalised. Over the comms, Armonie added, "_Arbalet, this is Armonie._" Her lips didn't move. Jordan narrowed her eyes.

"_Armonie, hello!_" an unfamiliar voice said over the comms. It was a masculine voice that had the slightest hint of a Russian accent, audible only in his vowels. "_I had thought that you would like to speak with us before we arrived._"

"_There are others on the line with me,_" Armonie told him, somehow managing to do so without moving her lips. "_Let me introduce them to you?_" At his agreement, she named everyone who greeted the cheerful Russian voice on the other end of the comm according to their natures.

Jordan shifted into a wider stance when Armonie nudged her knee open. "I _definitely_ was a stripper in a past life."

Saetta's eyes held a laugh in them as he looked up from where he was adjusting a strap on her thigh. "Most people find this uncomfortable. I'm glad that you don't."

"_Focus_," Prowl told her privately. His holoform looked pained.

"It's okay, Prowl, I only have eyes for you," Jordan teased and Armonie cackled.

Arbalet chuckled. "_Am I missing something?_"

"_Saetta and I are helping Jordan fit her armor and I suppose you could say we're in an awkward position._" Armonie explained. "Move your leg, Jordan?" she asked out loud.

Bluestreak was frowning at the Italian woman. "We'll ignore for now the question of how you're doing that," he informed her.

"In any case, it's none of our business. The _how_, I mean," Jordan told Bluestreak. To Armonie, she said, "But you will list it among our assets, right?"

The woman made a face but nodded. "_I suppose I must_."

"_Sorry for our lapse of attention, Arbalet_," Jazz said, glancing at them. "_What's your status?_"

The voice on the other end of the comm chuckled. "_I'm used to distractions,_" he assured them. "_We're all just about combat ready by the time we reach you; just give us some time to rest before we jump back into the air._"

"_Do you have an ETA?_" Jazz asked, all business.

Arbalet paused as if to think about it. "_Best guess is that we'll be there by late afternoon, maybe around 4pm there._" Jordan glanced at her wrist to check the time but remembered that she had taken her watch off to arm up.

"_It's two, now,_" Prowl told her softly, seeing her motion.

"_Give us an hour's rest and we'll be ready for combat_," Arbalet finished.

Saetta stood with a satisfied huff. "_I'd like to go over your armor and weapons before we go into combat. There's not much I can do, but I can at least make sure nothing's too damaged._"

"_It's very much appreciated,_" Arbalet assured him.

As Jordan listened, Prowl and Jazz led the charge in the discussion. How many jets were under Arbalet's command? What were their alternate forms? Their strengths? Their skill sets?

Keeping her earpiece in, Jordan disconnected her throat mic and smiled apologetically when Saetta and Armonie glanced at her. "I'm more of a gun kind of person - just point and shoot. All of this planning and tactician-ing makes my blood curdle."

Armonie laughed though the skin around her eyes was tight; she was still tense, a coiled spring ready to explode. "I get that," she said. "It's nice to have someone else plan everything."

Cautiously, Jordan glanced at Saetta and then the rest of the group. Their heads were bent over Raoul's holographic map, outlining areas for Hound to scout, the landing areas that the spy had marked out for the jets to land, and all of the other little details that escaped Jordan's simple kind of thought process. It made her head spin.

Armonie's eyes softened slightly. "The Guardian Gestalt...they weren't used to being around humans _or_ on Earth. For that alone I had to guide them and determine what courses of action would best suit all of us." She stood and handed Jordan a pair of gloves. "Gloves last. What do you think?"

"My thoughts about how hot this armor is would be too vulgar for the delicate ears we have nearby." Jordan said dryly. Hound barked a laugh as he began to drive away and Prowl, knowing that she was referring to him, glared at her. "Good hunting, Hound!"

The holoform of the geology professor waved a massive arm out the window as he rolled out. Armonie knocked a knuckle against one of the armor pads over Jordan's stomach. "If it's anything like the set I have, it will stop most things that'll come for you. The undersuit is meant to keep you either warm or cool based on your core temperature."

Jordan snorted. "If I had a nickel for every time I heard _that_."

But Armonie was already shaking her head. "I said that too," she admitted. "But it's saved me more than I would like to admit." Jordan ignored the question of how she may have been in more than one situation in the past few months, during the time of her family's murder and her vengeance-fueled rampage. "It will do you good too."

Prowl walked a circuit around Jordan, eyeing her critically. He did the same thing whenever they suited up for a particularly dangerous walk or those few times they had been called to break up fights. No matter how much she insisted that she could - and have, in the past - arm herself, he still did so every time. He had already learned once how fragile she was.

"_Arbalet,_" Armonie was saying over the comms as she began to strip and don her own armor. Hot Rod's form blurred, became a writhing mass of blobby shadow, before settling on the dead-eyed teenager. He reached the straps she would have difficulty on and tugged where needed to get everything to sit right. "_Is that name what you would still like to be called?_"

The jet laughed over their comms. "_We had been speaking about that, actually,_" he admitted. "_Our names in Russia were well enough, but we all feel like that should change - we're not going to be the same mechs we were in Russia._" Jordan noticed that Saetta winced at that. Seeing her watching him, he looked away quickly, focusing on whatever work he was doing on the helmet in his hands. "_I figured that I should pick something that would remind me of the kind of mech that I want to be._"

"_Noble_," Raoul drawled. Like Armonie, he didn't speak out loud; it made Jordan feel lonely to be the only one unable to speak like that.

Arbalet chuckled. "_I like the sound of my name _now_...so I caved in and chose something that matched...just a bit._"

Apparently finished with his inspection of Jordan, Prowl nodded once. "It'll do," he decided, the very slight softening of his holoform's eyes the only sign Jordan had that he was relieved with the measures for her safety. It gave her heart and she gave him a shaky smile, tapping her knuckles against the metal plate in her skull. He scowled at her and stalked off like an affronted cat.

Saetta handed her the helmet he had been tinkering with. "Your mic will be transferred in here and I've also implanted a simple HUD in there for you. It will automatically switch between IR, 'night vision', and a few other visual spectrums."

At his nod, she tucked her head and hair into the helmet. It fit like a motorcycle helmet, padded on the inside and as she slid it into place, she caught sight of the microphone and speaker that Saetta was talking about. Moving around her, Saetta wrapped an armored gorget around her neck, fitting it under the back of the helmet and under the high collar of her undersuit. Small metal plates were cold against her skin for a brief moment before they warmed with contact against her skin.

The engineer gestured to them as he fastened the gorget to the undersuit to keep it from moving around. "These plates will...for lack of a better descriptor, pick up your brain waves." Jordan fought back a chuckle - it sounded very corny, like something out of an old science fiction movie from the '80's. "I know," he said with a shy smile. "But it will automatically toggle between the views you need based on the strain it feels in your eyes. I took out IR feeds because I'm not sure how to get it to work for you."

"I have an IR feed in mine, though," Armonie told Jordan, holding her arms over her head while Hot Rod's dead-eyed holoform pulled her armored vest over her shoulders. "You and I will be sticking together regardless of what anyone else says."

Jordan nodded - she had expected to pair off with Armonie despite any misgivings that Prowl or Hot Rod may have to that course of action: Armonie had experience as a human fighting Decepticons; Jordan had experience as a human defending herself. She had a feeling that they would do very well together.

Satisfied at least temporarily with Jordan and Armonie's armor, Saetta announced out loud that he intended to go over everyone's armor and weapons to make sure everything was up to par and make adjustments if he could.

"_What did you decide on?_" Raoul asked, his holoform rolling his eyes as only a hipster could.

Arbalet chuckled again. "_I rather liked the sound of Silverbolt_."

* * *

**So I probably won't be uploading anything else this weekend. I'll try, but I can't promise anything since I'll be at Lehigh for a football game on Saturday and on Sunday I'll be at Retrocon with some of my friends.**

**Until next time!**

**~DC**


	22. Breathe

**CHAPTER WARNING****: gore and violence. Some swearing but the particularly vulgar ones are still censored (or in other languages). **

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**Sorry this took so long...I kept getting distracted by YouTube.**

**This chapter is brought to you by the song **_**Rock On**_** by Tucker Beathard. I heard it a few times this past few week but recently got it stuck in my head, especially since my ex (who I am still very good friends with) started talking to me about doing his residency in California. **

**On another note, I hope that no one ever checks my Internet search history...there are a lot of strange things I research - see bottom notes for more information on some of the details I gloss over and the things I Google that should be concerning.**

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The humans sat in the tent to stay out of the relentless desert sun while they waited. Jordan remained in her surprisingly comfortable armor, practicing removing and putting away her various guns and weaponry.

Once the tent flap was closed and sealed, Armonie began stripping down her layers. Hot Rod joined them, remaining in his teenager form. He helped Armonie to disrobe from her padded outer armor to her spandex-like underarmor. From other times they had undressed in front of each other, Jordan knew that Armonie wore a sort of breast wrap that wrapped around her chest and back and tied in the front with a twisting knot. It made an odd shape under her skintight undersuit but they were hardly being judged on their appearances.

To her surprise, Saetta joined them once Armonie had stripped her upper body. Naked save for her strange breastwrap, Armonie held out her right arm to Saetta. "I thought it appropriate that I _show_ you rather than just _tell_ you," the Italian said softly. "There are still other...recalibrations that need to be done. Finer things that Saetta, Hot Rod and I have perfected during our hunt."

Saetta gently rubbed along her arm, focusing around Armonie's elbow and working down. Seeing that Armonie's eyes were on that gentle motion, Jordan took the hint and glanced down. Armonie's skin, for lack of a better word, was _sliding off_.

The seam appeared part of the way up her arm, where Jordan thought the other woman's deltoid ended. A stripe of discolored skin - pale, like it hadn't once seen the sun in a perfect cuff - seemed to mark the very edge where Armonie's real skin and the synthetic layer that Saetta carefully peeled off. The arm that was revealed was made of metal, perfectly mimicking the form of Armonie's left one.

"I lost my arm," Armonie said as if it wasn't obvious. "And my leg. The infection rotted the bone so we had to cut the rest up to my shoulder." Saetta peeled off the false skin like a glove then moved his hands up to her bare shoulder. "That's why I don't wear a traditional...ah…"

"Sports bra," Jordan supplied absently, knowing it was weird and rude to stare but doing it anyway.

Armonie nodded, shifting her shoulder. Saetta wordlessly began peeling the skin of her upper arm and shoulder off, revealing to Jordan the extent of the damage to Armonie's body. Though her arm was futuristic and appeared to mimic a human's arm, the interface between the metal and her skin seemed clumsy and out of place. A metal rod jutted out of her shoulder which looked sunken with its swollen flesh and puckered scars; the rod terminated in a sort of ball joint that, Jordan supposed, must mimic the range of motion of a natural human arm.

Taking a tool from the small chest of tools offered to him by Armonie, Saetta began work on the metal arm.

"This arm is a little stronger than my other one," Armonie offered awkwardly. "If the strength requires my shoulder or torso, it's a little difficult, but my right hand is much stronger than my...real one."

Jordan watched as Saetta gently moved Armonie's arm around, using a small screwdriver to make tweaks to the futuristic machinery. "I never thought of that," she admitted. The idea that Armonie had a cybernetic arm had given her hope, had made her imagine Armonie lifting debris and maybe even Decepticons over her head like some cartoonish carnival strongman. But a strong arm was one thing; to do those wondrous feats that the whimsical, imaginative part of Jordan had almost wished, Armonie would need strong legs, strong arms, _and_ a strong back among other things.

Though she didn't want to assume either way, Jordan knew that there were limits to human strength. In this sense, she sensed that there would be very few miraculous acts of strength from Armonie. Somehow she couldn't find it in herself to be even a little disappointed.

As Saetta worked, Armonie lifted her other arm; Hot Rod opened a large jar that he removed from his subspace pocket and rubbed the thick ointment on the burn scars extending from the Italian's wrist to her shoulder. "The house ate my arm," Armonie added dryly. "The fire nearly took the other one. I suppose you could say that it's my weak side even if it's my...dominant hand."

"This ointment was made by Sirena," Hot Rod said, startling Jordan with his choice to speak. There was no inflection in his voice; it fell flat and lifeless, sending a shiver down her spine.

It seemed that Hot Rod decided not to make any effort with his contribution to the conversation; there was an awkward silence for a while as Saetta and Hot Rod worked in silence to tend to Armonie's arms.

"I lost my right leg, too," Armonie offered. "It wasn't as bad as my arm. Just below my knee; Sirena replaced that too since I'd had a bum knee on that side. Small linings, I guess."

Jordan cocked her head to the side, taking a moment to think on the odd phrase. "Silver," she said. "Silver linings."

By the shine in Armonie's eyes, the slip had been deliberate. "Ah, yes," she said with a sly smile. "Silver linings."

"How did you speak over the mic earlier?" Jordan found herself asking. "I didn't hear you when you spoke to me but you also didn't...speak…"

Armonie's smile was sad. She tilted her head and tugged her hand away from Hot Rod; this she used to press her ear forward, revealing a dark mole behind her earlobe. Leaning closer, Jordan first noticed surgical scars and shaved portions of her skull not unlike the ones on her own head. Realizing that the mole looked strange, Jordan leaned closer and realized that it was a _port_.

"In a simplified way," Saetta said, speaking for the first time, perhaps sensing that neither were sure what to say. "There are leads and wires running over the major portions of her brain and are connected to the port. Should she so choose, she is capable of 'plugging in' to any Cybertronian and even a few Earth devices."

Lifting the throat mic she had worn earlier, Armonie showed Jordan the angled plug and how it would fit into the port just behind her ear with just enough slack in the cord to allow the earpiece to hook over her ear and hide the dark void in her skull.

"It takes...just a thought," Armonie said haltingly as Wheeljack began sliding her false skin back over her cybernetic arm. When it fell into place, it looked like real skin. The Italian, perhaps sensing her curiosity, held out her arm for Jordan to feel while stretching out her other missing limb for Saetta who began inching down the false skin of her lower leg. "Took me awhile to get used to it. If I connect to Hot Rod, he can help me focus on things."

Jordan's fingers twitched when she felt surprisingly lifelike skin. There was no hair on Armonie's false skin but it didn't _feel_ synthetic. In fact, if it didn't feel quite so...lifeless...in a way that Jordan couldn't quite describe, she would never guess. "It's…"

"Freakish?" Armonie asked bitterly, something like tears appearing in her shark-like eyes. This close, Jordan could see that her eyes weren't as black as she had expected but rather they were coffee-colored, so dark brown that they nearly blended into her pupil. "I've gotten that before."

_It's reassuring that your great feats have a drawback,_ Jordan had meant to say but had stopped herself at the last minute. _Your sacrifice wasn't for something as perfect as what we would expect. _Six Million Dollar Man_-style, you're not infallible. _

She was being selfish, she knew. "Thank you for trusting me," Jordan told her quietly. Maybe one day she would work up the courage to tell Armonie what she had really thought but so close to a fight, something that required all of their attention, they couldn't afford any human weakness.

_God,_ she itched for a drink. She was bad off, but not so bad that her hands shook. Still, she wished she was weak enough to ask Prowl for the nip of Jamo in his subspace pocket; she regretted not packing some when they escaped her house, for not searching harder for something in the destroyed convenience store - that she had even _thought_ to.

To take her mind off other such thoughts, she pointed to the work that Saetta was doing. "Anything I can do to help?"

Saetta smiled at her. "Pass me the pliers?" he asked, motioning to the open toolkit near Armonie's hip. The woman's other arm had been taken up once more by Hot Rod who smoothed ointment on it. Jordan obeyed. "What happened to your head?" he asked as she passed the requested tool, motioning to her skull with the points.

"Cra-ni-o-to-my," Jordan said. Even though it had been months she had been allowed back to full duty and months longer since she had been released from the hospital, the word still seemed dry and difficult in her mouth; to properly say the procedure, she needed to slow down and sound out the syllables.

The holoform glanced at her in interest. "Temporal?"

Jordan gave a toothy smirk. "Parietal," she corrected. "They cut a little lower than they needed to just in case the fractures went a little lower than just the parietal plate." Or so Prowl had told her often while he had taken care of her during her recovery. Perhaps he was a little biased but the scar dipped down closer to her ears than she had expected for the fractures.

"What happened?" Armonie asked, looking genuinely_ interested_, but not in the creepy sort of way police fetishists had. Perhaps it made sense, due to her background with body modification.

Hot Rod peered at her with his head eyes. "_Police Officer in Critical Condition After Bar Brawl,_" he said. "February-"

Faster than Jordan expected, Armonie lifted her flesh hand and stopped the holoform from continuing. "_Enough_," she said firmly. "It's not for _you_ to tell me." Armonie smiled thinly. "When you're ready."

Remembering how candid Armonie had been with her, Jordan found herself telling her fellow hunter the whole story of how she met Prowl and how he saved her from dying on a cold, salt-dusted sidewalk.

* * *

The waxing gibbous moon hung high overhead, floating over the scattered jewels of the stars. A lone jet streaked across the sky, a dark blot against the silver and mauveine scarves of distant nebulae.

Armonie enhanced the image and sent it to Jordan's HUD - it was a modified cargo-passenger utility aircraft which in turn had been a modification of yet another model of aircraft. Skydive had further modified it to fit his own fascination and physical size, resulting in a rather unsettling silhouette.

"_The skies look clear_," the jet said over the comms. His wings held steady as he darted over the desert, looking like a very strange passenger jet. Silverbolt had assured them many times that Skydive was incredibly thorough and remarkably steady - he wouldn't break until he absolutely had to and would trust in their plan even if the entire Decepticon Army took to his trail. "_I don't even _see_ a patrol_."

Someone sniffed over the comms; Armonie thought it was Air Raid, who seemed to think he was the best thing with wings in the world. She was proven wrong when she heard Slingshot's strange German accent. "_Stupid Cons; no patrol?_"

"_Just because you don't see one doesn't mean they're not out there,_" Jordan said serenely. With all his lights off, Prowl was barely visible even with the nearly-full moon high overhead, his gray coloring blending in with the dusty road that lay ahead of them. Hot Rod, who had chosen to match the color of the desert sand, was a little more conspicuous and so had his lights on and drove a mile behind Prowl so as to not look too out of place or draw to much attention to either of them.

"_Relax, Air Raid,_" Prowl said a heartbeat later. "_You'll have the chance to have your aerial fight soon enough._"

Silverbolt hummed thoughtfully. He and his team save Skydive waited on a nearby plateau, ready to take to the skies at a moment's notice. "_Dogfight_," he said to no one in particular. Though she would never tell Hot Rod, she loved the way his accent made his words roll off his tongue; it would just make her companion and pseudo-son jealous.

"_The base is quiet_," Raoul said from wherever he was hiding himself.

Armonie zoomed in on the distant pinpricks of light that she thought were Skydive's navigation lights. They were just discolored stars and she grumbled under her breath, her hands tightening on her rifle.

Suddenly, Skydive yelped over the comm. Further ahead than Armonie had expected, lights bloomed in the sky: explosions and blaster fire. "_Skywarp on my tail!_"

Armonie glanced down and watched as Hot Rod gearshift moved on its own, changing gears; he leaped forward, his engine roaring and a moment later the top shifted, opening to the cold desert air. "_Love you, Mammina_," Hot Rod said privately to her.

If she were a weaker creature, she would have teared up but personally she was sure that whatever surgeries Saetta and Sirena had worked on her had destroyed her ability to cry, to shed even the slightest tear. Since her family had been cremated and she had laid them to rest, she hadn't been able to cry. She chose to speak out loud as Hot Rod pulled up beside Prowl; the wind whipped away her words so the Enforcer probably didn't hear, but Hot Rod could. "You're the only child I have left; come back to me." Heedless that they were traveling fast enough to cause the landscape to whip away from them, Armonie threw herself from the Mahindra's cab and through Prowl's open backseat window.

Glancing over her shoulder, she watched Hot Rod veer away, traveling out over the desert. He had turned on all of his lights, turning into a brilliant beacon that darted across the sand and drew attention to himself for what he was - and what _human_ would be driving so early in the morning (or so late at night, depending on your point of view) so recklessly?

Engines roared as another jet rose straight up from some point ahead of them. It spun like a top in the sky, taking joy in something that was beyond any land-bound creature's understanding for a brief moment before orienting itself and racing after Skydive.

Prowl smoothly shifted gears and leaped forward. "_Welcome aboard the Prowl express_," Jordan said in stereo over the comm and audible in the relative void of sound in Prowl's cabin as he rolled up the window.

"_ETA two minutes,_" Prowl said. Jazz and Bluestreak gave their own acknowledgements from wherever they were in the desert.

On the other side of the base, Hound said, "_Guys, I have incoming…_" he trailed off oddly and Armonie briefly entertained the thought that he may have been _cut off_...but Hound continued after a few tense breaths. "_Incoming _human_ convoy._"

"_There's more activity here,_" Raoul said from wherever he was hiding in or near the base. "_Like someone kicked an anthill._"

"_Have you _tried?" Bluestreak asked. The gunner didn't seem to like the spy at all and would make snide comments whenever he could. To his credit, Raoul didn't seem _too_ bothered by it though on occasion Armonie could sense his annoyance.

They all ignored the question. "_ETA to base?_" Prowl asked crisply.

"Guys," Skydive said with exaggerated patience. "_Starscream and Skywarp _are on my tail."

"_Sucks to suck,_" Air Raid replied.

Armonie commed Hot Rod for permission to "hack" his sensors and received it. A moment later she was "seeing" through his "eyes" as a black car nearly invisible in the darkness of the desert took chase. "_I have a Stunticon on my tail,_" Hot Rod said, deceptively calm. "_Another may be trying to cut me off ahead._"

"_Do not engage just yet,_" Prowl advised, the de facto tactician if not temporary leader of their group. During lulls in their planning meetings, Prowl admitted that it had been one of his duties during the war. Jazz had been third-in-command of the Autobot Army; Prowl had been second. It had made Jordan's head spin. "_I'm concerned about that human convoy. Hound?_"

Skydive cursed over the comms. "_What about me?_"

"_Can we rescue 'Dive, Prowl?_" Silverbolt asked dryly. "_Or we'll never hear the end of it from him._" Two others from his team cackled; Armonie thought it was Air Raid and Fireflight, but she wasn't entirely sure. In vulgar Russian, Skydive told everyone listening what he thought of that.

"_Air Raid and Fireflight, if you must,_" Prowl replied, voice equally dry; Jordan chuckled. "_I'm sure they can guess who you are, but I want to keep your locations as secret as we can for now._"

It made sense to Armonie: Silverbolt and Slingshot were both significantly larger than Skydive, Fireflight, and Air Raid which could be advantageous if they were to encounter other, larger Decepticons that they weren't aware of. With twin _whoop_s, the named Autobots transformed and took to the air, streaking across the sky. Air Raid dipped low to the ground over Prowl, cackling before gaining height.

"_The next time you do that,_" Armonie told them darkly in Russian when her ears stopped ringing. "_I will rip out your spark core myself._"

Jordan groaned. "_Whatever she said, I'll help._"

"_Sorry,_" Fireflight said.

"_If they don't already know they're under attack, they do now,_" Bluestreak muttered.

Armonie returned her attention to Hot Rod. He had the advantage, if only temporarily, over the rough terrain but there were now two Decepticons on his tail, gleefully giving chase. They were gaining on him, heedless of the strain they were putting on their tires and axles. "_It's okay, Ma_," Hot Rod told her privately. "_I know this desert better than them; I can hold out without engaging them for a few more minutes while Prowl gathers his data._"

"_The convoy has arrived at the base,_" Hound said over open comms a moment later. "_Humans are getting...wait…_"

There was a growl in Jazz's voice. "_'Wait' _what?"

"_General Aldrin Keynes._" Raoul said when Hound didn't reply right away. The scout and the spy sent them all an "image" of their location based on the rough maps they had of the base. Both had a view of the "front" of the base where the convoy had parked. "_And Colonel Tanser. No one else of import according to records._" Before Prowl could say anything about knowing the exact numbers, Raoul continued, "_There are four guards for the general and three for the colonel._"

Raoul seemed to take Armonie's "ability" in stride when revealed, and now offered her the opportunity to "hack" into his visual systems the way she had been with Hot Rod. She accepted and peered through his visual arrays.

He was in root form, peering over a cluster of rocks. Jordan and Armonie had been fascinated with his ability to completely disappear from the visual spectrum as well as from most scans. Now he used this to perch on a rock outcrop that Armonie could tell was far too exposed for anyone's liking, much less a spy or sniper.

Obligingly, Raoul gave Armonie a view of the area before zooming in on the humans and their cars; Armonie "sent" several stills of the area to Jordan's HUD before refocusing on what Raoul was trying to show her. "_Colonel Tanser is the blonde,_" Raoul told her privately. The seven additional personnel were dressed identically in their pixelated fatigues, any distinguishing features hidden by Advanced Combat Helmets and night vision goggles. The two officers, in comparison, were dressed smartly in their dress uniforms, accolades and awards gleaming in the moonlight.

Even if Raoul hadn't thoughtfully identified Colonel Tanser, Armonie would be able to guess which of the two officers he was: the silver eagle that marked his rank, different than the insignias of _colonello_ and _Aluf mishne_ that she was used to, winked at her as he turned and looked around in confusion.

A massive mechanoid stepped out of the Decepticon base and to his credit, Tanser startled but steeled his spine and stood up straight, tipping his head to stare defiantly into the mangled face and blood-red optics of a massive silver Decepticon.

"_It looks like Megatron hasn't changed much,_" Hound said over the comms and Armonie realized that the mangled giant whose chest remained open like a scar that hadn't healed, that was missing a bladed mandible and a chunk of the armor on its face, was the leader of the Decepticon Army. "_He looks ugly as sin, though._"

Bluestreak scoffed. "_He's _supposed _to be dead. Sam pushed the AllSpark into his spark._"

"_Maybe that's why he looks so out of sorts,_" Raoul suggested. "_He's not moving quite right._"

Armonie "sent" Jordan a feed of what she was seeing through Raoul's eyes and reopened her private line with the spy. "_Can you hear what they're saying?_"

"_Not really,_" Raoul replied regretfully. "_My audios aren't the best. If the humans speak and are facing me, I can give you an idea of what they might be saying, though._"

The Italian thanked him and watched. On the feed that she was provided (and was in turn providing to Jordan), Raoul added subtitles. "_Are you sending this to Prowl as well?_"

"_Just him and you,_" Raoul assured her. "_I sense that this won't be a nice meeting._"

General Keynes was speaking, his head turned partially to Raoul. _We had a deal which you keep [indistinct]_.

When he spoke, Megatron's voice boomed like thunder, echoing off the rock faces. According to a brief note that Raoul provided in _Ivrit_, the language of choice prompting a dark chuckle from Armonie's body, Hound was providing additional audio as he was in a more advantageous position to hear a clearer record of the conversation.

"You wish to spare your pagan daughter," the supreme leader of the Decepticons growled. "You said you would do _anything_ for her soul."

Armonie could see the general's throat bob as he swallowed. The identity-less personnel shifted uneasily but didn't move from their positions flanking both men. She had to give them some credit for that, even if the whole situation gave her a bad taste in her mouth. Colonel Tanser became agitated.

"What is going on?" he spat, Raoul's subtitles validated by the tinny audio provided by Hound.

Moonlight glittered off the tracks of tears that fell down the general's face as he turned to one of the faceless men around them. "_I'm sorry Carey_," Raoul's subtitles said; there was no audio provided by Hound. General Keynes grabbed something from one of the operatives and spun around. A heartbeat later, the colonel's head exploded in gore and pieces of bone and brain as the sharp retort of a pistol echoed in the relatively quiet desert night.

Like birds the seven other men started at the sound and motion, turning inward toward the general. They hesitated and the man shot two dead before red flowers appeared on his torso; Armonie could hear the semi-automatic fire from her physical body. Thanking Raoul quickly, she disengage and "returned" to her body. She performed a quick check of her rifle before bracing herself.

"_We're coming in hot,_" Prowl said over the comms. "_Whether or not the humans involved are guilty, we cannot let them die by Megatron's hands._" What he didn't say was that chances were that by the time they were close enough to help, they would all be dead, smeared into the desert sand by an angry Cybertronian.

Raoul grunted over the comms. "_I can provide cover fire for them. Do I have permission?_"

In unison, Prowl and Jazz gave it. "Yes!" Jazz snapped.

"_Be careful,_" Prowl agreed, more cautious than the saboteur.

Armonie was a little sad that she couldn't hear the full retort of the lovely sniper rifle Raoul had given to Saetta to look over before they set out. If they all survived their rescue mission, she reminded herself that she should ask the spy to see that beautiful, graceful weapon up close and in action. But Saetta had upgraded Raoul's silencing equipment and Armonie could just barely hear the sounds of combat in the distance.

"_Permission to engage?_" Hot Rod asked. "_Dead End and Wildrider are still on my ass_."

Prowl sighed. "_The element of surprise we had is now gone. Permission granted._"

Over the private comm she had with Hot Rod (it _always_ remained open), she could hear his roar of rage and the sound of him transforming. She almost pitied the Decepticons following the melee fighter.

Almost.

"_Nearly there,_" Bluestreak said. "_Do _I_ have permission to engage?_" It had been something brought up in their planning meetings. The Autobots tended to be smaller than the Decepticons were fairly sure were at the base and though they were all incredibly deadly, they wanted to minimize injuries and casualties to their small band of hunters.

"_I'm nearly caught up with him,_" Jazz added.

Hot Rod told Armonie privately, "_In the Battle of Mission City, he was ripped in half by Megatron. He had apparently died._"

At the same time, Prowl said over open comms, "_If you are both careful._"

The two smaller mechanoids whooped and an explosion echoed around the rocks. "_We can't let them have _all_ the fun!_" Jordan complained.

Both humans were temporarily blinded by a car's high beams and they flinched, affected by the lights before their visors darkened automatically. Prowl jerked to the side with a screech of his tires and he spun to a halt, popping open his doors. "_Get out!_" he roared.

Armonie threw herself out the door and rolled, Jordan following a heartbeat later as Prowl transformed and spun to face the Decepticon car as it spun to face him again. "JACK!" Armonie screamed over the comms though out loud she made no more noise than a grunt as she got to her feet.

"Prowl!" Jordan yelled as the Decepticon tackled her partner. She raised her gun but couldn't fire for the same reason Armonie couldn't.

"_Almost there,_" Saetta grunted and Armonie could hear the revving of his engine as he approached at speed.

Armonie did some quick calculations in her head. The Decepticon was quick and light on his feet but Prowl was more heavily armored; neither seemed to have melee weapons other than their clawed hands which they used to tear at each other with terrifying force. But Saetta was smaller than Prowl and especially against Decepticons, size mattered. Right now, Jordan was too concerned with Prowl to notice the danger she was in.

Grabbing her by her braid, Armonie yanked Jordan back and out of the way as a dark red creature dropped from the sky. Once Jordan was out of the way, Armonie fired her rifle point-blank into the thing's chest. It screamed in rage and whatever pain it could feel, bowled back by the force of the laser-like blast.

Instinctively, Armonie ducked and raised her free arm, protected by metal plating along her forearm, over her head as another birdlike creature dropped. Its claws scraped against the plating but didn't pierce or do anything more than lightly score it; the metal for her vambraces had been hard-won off her battle with Destroyer. In a battle of wits, she had won and took pieces of his armor as trophies. None of the other Decepticons she had encountered once she began using them had particularly appreciated its craftsmanship but she supposed that you couldn't please _everyone_.

The yellow bird-creature screamed in rage, a sound that would have deafened her if not for her helmet, as its claws cut through the cloth and encountered the guards on her arm. The momentum of its dive carried it forward as the second bird tried to lunge again. As tall as a child at the shoulders, its long neck brought its face, with buglike face with a cruel raptor's beak and bulging scarlet optics level with Armonie's visor.

Jordan scrambled to her feet behind Armonie, fouling Armonie's legs as she stepped back to accept the bird-thing's vicious snap. Swearing, Armonie went down, slamming her armored back into Jordan's knees. She brought her right arm up, shoving it and her serrated KA-BAR knife, a gift from her late father - into its mouth.

The thing _screamed_, yanking its head back and to avoid having her arm wrenched out, she let go of the knife and rolled. "_Stop moving!_" Armonie screamed at Jordan, battle fever and rage making her unsure of which language she was speaking in.

Armonie leaped to her feet in time to duck the flying one's raking claws, reaching for another knife to dig into its second set of wings. She had no time to react, moving to block the red one's lunge; it had figured out that Jordan, laying prostrate at her feet, would trip her if she moved too much.

If she moved or dodged too far, they would kill the ex-officer.

Gritting her teeth, Armonie reached into her arsenal for help. Her KA-BAR had been flung away and she didn't know where her rifle was and with the red creature she was stuck to close-range fighting. The knife she used on the flying creature wasn't as effective as her other one and was shorter than Armonie would like, but she had to make do.

The creature's tail, armed with steel feathers like knives and a "bone" strut could apparently dislocate and strike like a scorpion's; Armonie brought her vambraces up again to block it, nearly too late as she tried not to let the thin feathers from slipping past her arms into her face. The downside was that her view was blocked and when she dropped her arms, she had little time to dodge as the thing's head, now split down the middle from her knife, snapped forward. The edge of a serrated beak snapped the cartilage of her ear, drawing a deep nick that spread warmth across that side of her face. It was a minor pain compared to the fire in her veins and she used her reinforced right arm to block a strike from one of those massive metal wings.

Though her prosthesis couldn't feel pain, she still gasped at the shock it brought up to her shoulder. The vambraces blocked the majority of the strain but she nearly punched herself in the face with the force behind the blow. As the other wing came forward, the head reared back for another strike.

With a convulsive leap that would have dislocated her shoulder if it hadn't been completely amputated, the thing lunged away with a feral shriek.

While she had grappled with the thing, Jordan had grabbed their bread knife from her subspace pocket and _shoved_ it deep into the gap in the creature's armor where its hook-clawed legs connected to its body. In the brief respite they were awarded, Jordan scrambled to her feet and stood back-to-back with Armonie.

"_Humans_," the red bird-thing snarled through its ruined mouth. It tried to yank the knife out of its sensitive wiring to no avail; while its wings had claws, it had no grasping thumb and it couldn't support itself well enough on its injured leg to use the other to remove the appendage that kept it from removing the cause of its pain. "_You will pay!_"

"_Duck!_" Jordan yelled and Armonie's knees collapsed as the yellow creature dove for them again. "_God_ I hate that thing."

If Armonie had the breath to, she would have laughed; she was just thankful that she didn't need her voice to talk anymore. "You_ hate that thing? Imagine how I feel._"

Jordan swore and Armonie could hear her bring her rifle to bear. "It's moving too quickly. I can't get a bead on it."

"_Use my rifle if you can. It's better at aiming and even if you miss it should still cause damage._"

The dark red "bird" lunged forward suddenly and Armonie punched it in the face with her reinforced arm; with her left, she reached for another knife and sliced at one of its surprisingly large red-orange optics.

"_You should stop stealing my knives,_" Armonie snapped to Hot Rod over their private line.

"_You say that like you think you can stop me,_" Hot Rod replied.

Armonie grunted. "Atah ben zona."

Her companion laughed. "_Don't talk about yourself like that._"

Behind her she heard the _phew-phew-phew-phew_ of her laser rifle...what had Angelo called it? _Avenger_? The other bird-creature _wailed_ and the one in front of Armonie whipped its head around. Armonie didn't dare turn around but activated the small cam Saetta had installed in Jordan's helmet. The ex-officer knew it was there but without a direct interface like Armonie did, couldn't easily access it to "send" things to Armonie's HUD; instead she gave the Italian permission to access it whenever she felt necessary.

The mustard-colored creature fell from the sky, two of its four wings crumpled and smoking; one of its hind wings on the other side still bore the mark of Armonie's knife. It flailed as it neared the ground but still ended up crashing. "The rifle, now!" Armonie hissed urgently over the comm and to her credit, Jordan spun quickly and pressed the warm metal into the Italian's hands.

Shrieking, the red creature _lunged_ forward as well as it was able to with its damaged leg as Armonie "connected" to the rifle and brought it up to bear. The first shot hit, by design, one of the swirling turbines in the thing's wing; the other hit its narrow hips. Where the bread knife in its joint had injured the delicate wires and support struts, a point-blank blast at the rifle's widest setting utterly _destroyed_ the delicate wires.

Armonie took a few deep lungfuls of air to catch her breath before altering the setting of the rifle once more. She had been warned before that the widest and highest beam setting could overheat the gun if she wasn't careful and she _liked_ this rifle. Besides. For what she wanted to do now, she wouldn't _need_ the widest setting.

Walking a little stiffly - she probably twisted something in her fall over Jordan - she approached the flailing creature as it tried to get to its feet, to pose any sort of threat. Though she ached to say _something_, she didn't dare risk giving it another chance to kill her; she fired the rifle into its chest and watched as its spark flared once and then went limp.

She yanked the bread knife out despite knowing that the weak human-made blade was beyond saving and subspaced it. Beside one of its spread wings her KA-BAR knife seemed to suck up the moonlight. Scooping it up, she placed it reverently back in subspace and pulled out a small lasercutter, something she had lifted off Sirena. It was human-sized so she knew that even if he hadn't given it to her directly, it had definitely been meant for her. It took only a moment to slice through the heavy shoulder struts attaching the thing's uninjured wing to its dead body and a light pass of the cutter to separate the delicate wiring and musclecables that allowed it motion.

Wing and lasercutter she placed in the subspace pocket of her bracelet marked by a tiny skull. She had liked the look of those blade-like feathers; maybe later Hot Rod would help her make another knife set.

After a moment of hesitation, she pulled the lasercutter back out and wiggled it between the plates of its lower back, neatly separating its tail from the thing's body. Satisfied, she turned to the mustard-colored one that glared hate at them from where it panted.

Its whip-like tail curled, ready to strike. Faster than it obviously expected, Armonie lifted her rifle and shot it through the spark; it fell limp and Armonie decided that she had already wasted enough time collecting her souvenirs from the other one.

Besides...this one wasn't nearly as interesting.

Attached to her HUD, the rifle beeped red warnings that it was close to overheating. She dialed down the blast power and subspaced the weapon. Jordan stood with her legs braced, her hands on her knees as she heaved great breaths into her lungs.

"_Come on,_" Armonie told her briskly, turning to the road. Prowl's fight had taken him further into the desert. "_I hope you're up for a run._"

Jordan swore but heaved herself into a light jog. "_Are you okay?_" Armonie asked Prowl over a private line.

"_Well enough,_" the tactician replied. "_Are you?_"

Jogging after Jordan, Armonie grunted. "_We're going for a run. Ran into some fliers; they're on their way to your gods now._"

To his credit, Prowl said nothing about that, accepting it easily. "_Silverbolt and his gestalt are regrouping - I'm trying to buy them some time. Will you be all right?_"

That explained why his fight seemed to be long and drawn out; she had begun to think that Hot Rod had just been exceedingly brutal in his fights. Armonie brought up the shared map they had and noted where she and Jordan had killed the fliers with green X's and looked for her friends.

Hot Rod logged that he was still whaling on the two Decepticons that had been chasing him, frustrating them by grappling with them and running off, stopping to fight, and then running off again. He was deceptively quick on feet and wheels when he put his mind to it and could be incredibly brutal.

She could see Hound and Mirage doubling up against another mechanoid that wasn't directly identified on their map but if they were _both_ fighting the same one, she supposed that he must be quite large. Was it Megatron? Bluestreak and Jazz were also at the base and as she feared, were both ganging up on Megatron.

_They needed to get to the base_.

Saetta roared down the road toward them, opening his doors to them; they threw themselves into his cab with grateful grunts. "_Sorry I took so long,_" he said cheerfully. "_A little kitty distracted me._" he sent Armonie an image of a creature that only looked like a cat because it had four legs and a long tail. It seemed more blades and serrated edges than anything else. Though it was small compared to Saetta, she was sure that it was nimble and difficult to fight with all of those sharp edges.

"_Get on our level,_" Armonie replied, showing him images of their victory. "_I have a few new toys to play with._"

The engineer chuckled darkly as the desert whipped past. He rattled along the rough road as he approached the base.

"Look alive," Armonie said out loud to Jordan. "We're nearly there."

"_Joy_," Jordan said drily.

Armonie rolled out of Saetta's cabin as soon as he skidded to a stop beside incredibly cliche black SUV's with military plates. The lights and engines were running but no one was there; one was on its roof, destroyed by Cybertronian fighting and most had dents and holes, caused by human and alien weaponry.

In the center of the clearing was General Aldrin Keynes. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky, his pistol just out of his reach.

A jet roared overhead and he flinched, gasping and coughing. Blood turned his lips red as he choked on his own blood. He was dying and there was precious little that Armonie could do for him.

"_Jack, go help Jazz and Blue,_" she said briskly. "_They're going up against Megatron; they need all the help they can get_."

Swearing, the engineer bounded away as Armonie approached the dying general. They were on a time crunch but she sensed that this was something she needed to do.

Flipping up her HUD visor, Armonie stared down at the man that caused this entire mess. Though not directly, he was responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians at the malls, for the death of Katie's assistant, for all of the humans that had gone with him to meet Megatron. That he was here meant that the part he was meant to play was at an end and what did that mean for the Autobot base?

"I...I just...I just…" he repeated it like a mantra. His voice was a strangled croak. A tear drew a track in his bloody, dusty face. "I love...I love…" _Katheryne_ his lips said and Armonie gripped his limp hand.

"You did what you thought was right," Armonie said placatingly. "You wanted to protect your daughter."

_Yes,_ his lips said. _Katheryne_ they said again and then went still; his mouth went slack and the last of his breaths rattled through frothing blood at the back of his throat.

Perhaps if things had played out differently, he would have had a _happily ever after_ or would at least have made it out with his life. Did he have a wife? Any other family? Armonie didn't know.

Did he have anyone to mourn him?

Reaching under his uniform coat, she pulled out his dog-tags and tucked them into one of her pockets on her vest. Standing, she hefted her rifle and nodded to Jordan who had waited for her. They headed for the base to the sounds of the fighting of giants.

* * *

The ceiling above them groaned and little stones made little _ping_s against Thundercracker's armor as he crouched over them, protecting them from small rockfalls with his body. Maggie was terrified, reminded of being trapped miles under the Hoover Dam as concrete dust cascaded down. Of circular disks flying through the air, of hearing a little gun shooting at her.

Her broken ribs didn't let her take deep breaths, forcing her to take little panicked pants.

As best he was able to, Keller tried to keep her calm, running his wrinkled hands over hers where they were clasped between them, the short, glowing chain binding the older man illuminating sweat and tears and the tracks of mucous that dripped unheeded down her face.

Thundercracker didn't say anything; his voice would only set her off. He focused on protecting them from the collapse of the cave around them, of deflecting stalactites as they fell when an explosion rattled their world. He focused on speaking to Katie with the speech board and the upper half of his holoform's body.

"_How are you so calm?_" he asked and Katie smiled serenely. "_Aren't you afraid to die?_"

The deaf woman moved the planchette to the _NO_ block then spelled out, _W-H-Y S-H-O-U-L-D I B-E-?_

It shamed him that Thundercracker was so afraid but this little flesh creature wasn't. He told himself that his claustrophobia from being _in a cave_ instead of in the air like Primus had intended was just an excuse for his miserable fear.

Thundercracker could hear Maggie's low sobbing and the soft murmurs from John Keller. Over the comms where the humans couldn't hear, Thundercracker could hear the screams of pain and fury from his fellow Decepticons and felt..._relief_.

* * *

The cave system was intricate and disappeared deep into the mountain; Armonie couldn't help but wonder if it had been there before the Decepticons had gotten there or if they had been dug out deliberately.

She switched on her FLIR lenses for a moment to look for heat but turned it off in disgust. The baking sun had warmed the sandstone so that even so late at night it held enough heat to turn everything a warm orange; she would have to wait until they were further in the cave to try again. Switching to her night-vision sensors, Armonie stepped into the yawning mouth of the cave.

"_On your six,_" Raoul murmured. He moved surprisingly quiet for such a large mechanical creature, but Armonie supposed that he was a _spy_ for a reason.

"_Jesus,_" Jordan said with feeling and Armonie waited for Raoul to travel further into the darkness of the cave before looking back to avoid being blinded by the comparatively bright night outside. "_What happened to you?_"

Armonie turned in time to see Raoul make a very human face. His right arm was a mangled mess and glittering fluid dripped from a gaping hole in his side. "_Soundwave,_" he said. "_Hound's fine,_" he added. "_Went to help the others; I thought I'd provide _you_ with some assistance._"

"_Appreciated,_" Jordan assured him. "_I'm not sure I have it in me to deal with another...aw _hell_._"

Armonie hip-checked the woman into a wall and swung the mechanoid that lunged at them over her other hip. "_Jordan, Raj_," she said tersely, pulling out a knife and one of her pistols. "_Find the girls. I can deal with this._"

As Jordan made to protest, Raoul scooped her up and took off down the hallway. Jordan's vulgar protests made Armonie chuckle before she narrowed her focus to the man-sized mechanoid that came at her from the darkness of the caves. "_I'm done with my fight,_" Hot Rod told her. "_I'm on my way over._"

She grunted her acknowledgement as she contorted herself to dodge a bladed disk flying at her. Raising her pistol, she managed to fire off three shots before she had to subspace it and dodge a flailing arm.

Gasping as _another_ arm jammed a fist into her side, Armonie spun and grabbing the arm in her modified arm, she swung her second assailant into the cave wall. Her knife scored a hit along the sensitive cables in its neck before she had to disengage, twisting painfully to avoid bladed claws that threatened her belly.

The next few...seconds? Minutes? Were spent desperately avoiding claws, blades, projectiles while trying to score as many hits as she could. Her biggest victory came in the point-blank gutshot she managed to get in the thinner of the two mechanoids but while it would eventually be a fatal blow, it only enraged the pair.

Rolling away from a kick that made the rock explode, Armonie threw herself to her feet and realized that her death was coming sooner rather than later.

"_Found them,_" Raoul said over the comms. She could hear Jordan speaking to someone but all Armonie's exhausted brain could register was that she was done. It was over.

_They found them_.

She went flying during her moments of distraction and slammed hard into the wall. Despite the very good armor that Saetta had made for her, she still felt every rough lump of rock in the wall, still _heard_ her head crack against stone. She couldn't even find it in herself to scream; she dropped to the ground, stunned, and the Decepticon pair advanced on her.

One of them ripped off her helmet, causing the cord connecting her to the systems to snap. She would have screamed in agony she wasn't trying so hard to _breathe_…

"Just another little fleshling," one of them sneered. It was the gutshot one and she smirked up at him around her heaving breaths. "What's so funny."

"_You sound so disappointed,_" Armonie told him in broken, approximated Cybertronian.

As expected, it enraged the pair and a rain of blows fell on her. She was yanked into a sitting position by a clawed hand digging into her hair and scalp. Blood dripped down into her eyes and past her nicked ear.

Had she only gotten that less than a half hour ago? It already felt like it had been decades…

Armonie howled in pain that quickly dissolved into hysterical laughter. She couldn't catch her breath; without her visor, she couldn't see the two of them except for the barest glint of spilled energon and they were too deep in the cave system for moonlight to reach her.

"_What's so funny?_" the (relatively) uninjured one demanded. Energon leaked down his neck and chest from a nicked fuel line in his neck.

"_Atah tambal_," Armonie spat, lifting her right arm as fast as she could; she got her pistol in her hand and fired into the one with the nicked fuel line. She didn't scream when the other one she had already gutshot sliced off her arm. "Now you match," she mocked, letting her pounding head thump back against the rock wall. She was so tired…

The two mechs snarled. One of them held up a blade. Had she been dodging _that_, too? She was amazed that she hadn't been sliced to ribbons. Or maybe she had and she hadn't noticed yet. "This is _stupid_. Any last words before we start cutting?"

So obviously she wasn't going to be beheaded...not at _first_, anyway. She thought it was odd that no one mentioned her prosthetic but she supposed they must be used to cybernetic limbs.

"Look, it's not bleeding from its arm," one of them said, Gutshot #1. _Or, perhaps they were just idiots_.

Gutshot #2 dug the point of his blade into her uninjured shoulder and she hissed in pain. "Any last words?" He repeated. "Speak up or forever hold your peace." he added in a sing-song voice.

"_Hapess me sheh ya-enay-otcha_," Armonie suggested.

"_What did you say?_" Gutshot #1 demanded, kicking her right knee; the joint popped and she laughed again despite the fact that the motion of her heaving breaths dug Gutshot #2's blade deeper into her skin and muscle.

She leaned her head forward, letting it loll to the side when the pain wouldn't let her keep it upright. "_Hapess. Me. Sheh. Ya-enay-otcha_." She said slowly, enunciating each word around her gasping, exhausted breaths as if she were speaking to an idiot.

Enraged, Gutshot #2 lifted his blade and she laughed, letting her head fall painfully back against the rock wall. She continued to laugh as she closed her eyes.

* * *

**Sorry for the abrupt ending. I got one chapter or so more before everything is wrapped up. Stay tuned!**

_**Apodesmos**_**: an undergarment made of wool that bore a basic resemblance to modern bras. It was wrapped in the front of the chest and fastened with pins in the back. It is said to be the first evidence of women's undergarments from the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete. **

**Osseointegration****: a procedure that fixes a titanium implant into the marrow space of the bone in the residual limb; allows for the avoidance of typical complications such as irritation or infection that may occur at the socket. (Macdonald, Cheyenne. "Man moves his robotic arms with his MIND: Groundbreaking brain-controlled prosthetic attaches to implant in patient's bone." **_**www. Dailymail .co .uk /sciencetech/ article-3397823/ Man-moves-robotic-arms-MIND-brain -controlled-prosthetic-attaches-implant -patient-s-bone .html**_**)**

**Craniotomy****: a surgery to cut a bony opening in the skull. A section of the skull, called a bone flap, is removed to access the brain underneath and can be large or small determining on the problem. It may be performed to treat brain tumors, hematomas, aneurysms, skull fractures, foreign objects, swelling of the brain, or infection. The bone flap is usually replaced at the end of the procedure with tiny plates and screws.**

**Amputation****: after surgery, the wound from an amputation may take one or two months to heal. A patient will probably stay in the hospital for up to two weeks, provided there are no complications. Amputees who get prostheses may be able to start using their prostheses as soon as a week after their operation. **

**Waxing Gibbous****: a waxing gibbous moon appears more than half-lighted but less than full. It is the moon phase that falls between a first quarter moon and a full moon.**

**Head-up Display (HUD)****: a display of instrument readings in an aircraft or vehicle that can be seen without lowering the eyes, typically through being projected onto the windshield or visor.**

**Dogfight****: a close combat between military aircraft**

**Aviation navigation lights****: a red navigation light is located on the left wingtip leading edge and a green light is on the right wingtip leading edge. A white navigation light is as far aft as possible on the tail or each wingtip and high-intensity strobe lights are located on the aircraft to aid in collision avoidance.**

**M-8 Avenger****: a common, versatile, military-grade assault rifle in the **_**Mass Effect**_** universe. Armonie's son Angelo used to play the games and had gotten Saetta interested in them enough for the both of them to make replicas of armor and weapons. Upon finding out about his friend's death, Saetta "armed" the replica of the **_**Avenger**_** (among others) and gave it to Armonie. She rarely uses it except when she thinks she needs an extra **_**oomph**_** in combat. ( www. youtube watch? v=yoHgKp TAJfI)**

_**Mammina**_** (Italian)****: "mommy"**

**Mahindra MM540****: a Jeep-based SUV developed in India; Hot Rod's alternate form for Hunting (Revenge). **

**Army Combat Uniform (ACU)/Flame-Resistant Army Combat Uniform (FRACU)****: ACU and its flame-retardant variant (FRACU) are the current battle uniforms worn by the US Army. They are the successors to the Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) and Desert Camouflage Uniform (DCU). **

**Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP)****: Also referred to as ACUPAT (Army Combat Uniform Pattern) or Digital Camouflage (digicam), it is the pattern used by the United States Army's Army Combat Uniform after lab and field tests from 2003-2004. In July 2014, it was announced that a new pattern (Scorpion W2) had been selected as a replacement pattern and will completely replace the UCP by end of September 2019.**

_**Colonello**_** (Italian)****: Colonel. Rank insignia: three vertical gold stars over a gold crown.**

_**Aluf mishne**_** (Hebrew)****: Colonel. Rank insignia (Army): three vertical black fig leaves edged in red. **_**Aluf**_**, which can mean **_**champion**_**, **_**aluf mishne**_** is translated as **_**secondary-**_**aluf. **

**Ivrit****: the name commonly used to refer to Modern or Israeli Hebrew. (**_**'ivrit hadasa[h]**_** \- "modern Hebrew" or "new Hebrew")**

**Vambrace****: sometimes known as **_**lower cannons**_** in the Middle Ages, it is the boiled leather or steel armor used to protect the lower arms. They are commonly confused with **_**bracers**_**, which are used to protect the inner arms of archers from the strike of the bow string. Another type of vambrace is the **_**manica**_**, the armguard of ancient Romans consisting of overlapping plates of iron or bronze.**

**Laserbeak (red) and Buzzsaw (yellow)****: Laserbeak took the form of a reddish **_**Archaeopteryx**_** with the alteration that his tail could segment and act as a sort of prehensile foot or stinger/slicer not unlike a scorpion's tail. Buzzsaw took the form of a **_**Microraptor**_** with the alteration that his tail, not strictly needed for balance, navigation, or stability as he was able to use his hind wings for that, could act as a serrated whip. Both had turbines in their wings to assist with flight (**_**a la**_** the version of Laserbeak in **_**Dark of the Moon**_**) and hooked claws on their feet not unlike **_**Velociraptor**_**. However, since they were awkward and unbalanced on land, they couldn't use it very well when they weren't flying. **

_**Hapess me sheh ya-enay-otcha**_** (Hebrew/Ivrit)****: **_**Atah ben zona **_**had been taught to me by a friend. I unfortunately had to look this one up and that means that I'm not entirely sure how correct it is. **


	23. Epilogue: Casualties

**CHAPTER WARNING****: Discussion of violence, torture, gore, and captivity. Some characters get vulgar - their swearing is censored or in another language.**

* * *

**I'm sorry that this chapter may be a bit confusing. It's a series of short sort of vignettes showing the aftermath. For the most part, they are either happening simultaneously or in chronological order.**

* * *

Waking up felt like drowning, like she could feel air just beyond her reaching arms but couldn't reach it. It was just there and her lungs burned.

She opened her eyes and immediately regretted it, closing them against the bright lights with a punched-out groan. _Everything hurt_.

"I tried to get them to turn down the lights," her hallucination said from somewhere to her right. "But they don't listen to me."

She snarled, using her irritation with the hallucination to fight back the pain. "Why _should_ they?" she asked out loud, her tongue feeling dry and heavy in her mouth. "They can't see you."

"Just because _I'm_ blind doesn't mean I'm invisible," the other replied. "Eff this. Who thought _macrame_ was a good idea? Effin' hell…" There was a rustle of paper and more expletives. "Eff this. I don't know which strings are which anymore."

Katie opened her eyes in time to see a halo of twisted branches streaming colorful twine fly through the air. There was a rustle and a crinkle of paper and ice raced through Katie's veins when she realized that she couldn't move.

"Calm down," Erin told her gruffly. There were more expletives and a clatter of metal and plastic on a tile floor and then the soft slap of bare feet. Erin came into view one arm in a sling and the other dragging along the IV pole. She shuffled forward awkwardly, using her feet to sweep the ground in front of her. "If I ever effing wish I had a bed pan, I would want to have one now so I can throw it on the ground," she snarled as she rounded her bed and approached Katie's. It took her a few tries to find the edge of the bed and then the lead-weighted blankets holding Katie down. This she peeled back with a gentleness that belied the annoyed expression on her scarred face.

"Why do I feel so weak?" Katie demanded of her cousin as she moved to carefully sit at the edge of the bed. "Where am I? What are you doing here?" Fear made her blood run cold again. _Had they captured Erin too?_

Erin shrugged. "Personally my first question would be why you can hear me, but that's just how _I_ would react if I woke up and could suddenly see." With an arm that felt like an overcooked noodle, Katie slapped her own face trying to feel her head. "The doctors thought you'd be waking up soon so they put your ears back in. _I _thought it was a bit of a waste because they didn't know exactly _when_ so they had multiple pairs nearby in case the ones in now wore the batteries out, but nobody listens to the blind girl." She cocked her head which was turned toward Katie's general direction. "That sounds like Izzy."

Katie could hear the door open but she felt too weak to turn her head. Judging by the way her head had sunk in the soft pillows, she guessed that even if she could she wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway. "You're supposed to be in bed, Erin," an old voice that brought tears to Katie's eyes said.

"Why?" Erin demanded snappishly. "I'm _blind_, not lame, and I broke my _shoulder_, not my legs."

Chief came into view, the leash and harness of a wiggling golden retriever. Seeing Erin and Katie, the dog whimpered and wiggled more, tugging hard on the harness and leash in the elderly man's hand.

"Izzy," Erin snapped and the dog sat with a whine. Carefully she got to her feet. "You can let go, Chief, I got him."

The old man obeyed though he looked dubious at that assertion. Erin snapped her fingers and the dog, though his hind half wiggled with his excitement, obediently moved to press his side into Erin's. "Do you?" Chief asked, eyeing the IV pole and Erin's injured arm.

"Well enough," Erin grumbled. "He's pretty much useless anyway. I only use him if Nicole isn't available."

Chief looked past Erin and his old face lit up. "Katie-Cat! You're awake." He turned to Erin with a wrinkled frown. "You were _supposed_ to tell the doctors when she woke up."

Rolling her blind eyes, she clicked her tongue at the dog who gave a low _whuph_ and pressed his face into her hip. "Surprise," Erin grumbled dryly. "She's awake. I'm sorry if I couldn't find the call button."

Shaking his head, Chief shuffled over to Katie's bedside and sat in the cheap plastic chair. "It's good to see you awake, Katie-Cat," he said. "I don't know what's gotten into Erin. She's not usually this...testy."

"I think it was the macrame," Katie croaked.

The man reached for a cup and a straw on her bedside table and leaned forward to offer it to her. "Wait. Let me call the nurse and raise your bed a little." Flushing with embarrassment that she had to be so babied, Katie waited as Chief pressed the call button for the nurse and angled the bed so she was at an angle. He offered her the cup again. "Slow sips," he cautioned. "The doctors said you were malnourished and dehydrated…"

"Where am I?" Katie asked when he pulled the cup back. "How did I get here?"

Chief frowned as he put the cup to the side. "Now that's the strange part," he admitted. "No one will tell me. We found out about the same time we brought Erin here."

"I'm _fine_," the blind girl snapped and with Izzy's help, made her way back to her bed. She walked like all of her joints hurt, looking as battered as Katie felt. "I don't know why you all bothered."

"Well _I'm_ glad we put up with your complaining," Chief replied, his eyes dancing with amusement. Seeing that he was happy and that his eyes were smiling, Katie stopped herself from chastising her cousin. She wasn't like Adalie whose words were meant to hurt; her words were sharp and hurtful but she was a prickly cactus and every rose has its thorns. "Bringing you here meant that we finally found our Katie. Where _is_ that nurse?"

The guide dog jumped up on Erin's beg and smacked the blind girl with his plumed tail. "I'm going to throw you out the window," Erin informed the dog as it lay down and looked up at her with soulful brown eyes. "You're lucky I actually _like_ you."

A nurse entered the room and bustled around. He couldn't tell Katie exactly how she came to the hospital, but he _was_ able to tell her when she had arrived - and how long she had slept. The nurse was nice, briskly checking her chart and then the IV in her arm. "We're putting a saline solution into you," he said kindly as he lifted the gauze pad to check the needle. He replaced it quickly and made a note on the clipboard, checking the drip chamber and the roller clamp and then the clipboard again. "It looks like you'd been stuck out in the desert for a while. Do you know what happened?" he asked as he checked her eyes with a penlight.

"No," Katie admitted. "I just remember…"

"You'd been missing for a week or so," the nurse said, brisk but kind when she trailed off. "Do you remember what happened? Well, don't tell _me_ \- they insist that I'm not supposed to know. Above my pay grade and all." The man made a face that made Katie offer a shaky smile. "They'll want to be talking to you but if you're not up to it, they ain't coming _close_ to this room." A tear slipped down Katie's face and she realized that she was shaking. "Hey now," the nurse said kindly, reaching out to pat her right wrist. "Stop leaking that saline solution or I'm going to have to refill your bag again."

That brought her a watery chuckle. The nurse offered her a tissue and Chief squeezed her left hand. "So give it to me straight. What's wrong with me?"

"Aside from malnutrition and dehydration, pretty much nothing," the nurse replied with a kind smile. He squeezed her hand again. "You had a few nasty scrapes and you were covered all over in dust but aside from that, once we've gotten you back to health you're free to go."

Katie frowned up at him. "What about my arm? Did you just pop it back into place?"

"Your arm?" the nurse asked. Erin's service dog grunted from where he was playing tug-of-war on the teen's bed. "What's wrong with your arm? Which one?"

She made a fist with the hand that he was touching and felt...nothing. Lifting her arm, she felt cold all over when the joint moved freely; it didn't catch, it didn't hurt or ache. She nearly yanked the IV that the nurse had just checked out of her left arm when she yanked it up to touch her shoulder.

No pain.

No swelling.

Yanking down the neckline of her hospital gown, she twisted her head to look at her shoulder. "Katie-Cat…" Chief said, leaning forward to put a gnarled hand on her thigh.

There was nothing. Dust, sand, but no bruising, no indication that her collarbone had been broken. "There was…" she whispered. "I couldn't move my arm."

"Could it have been a dream?" the nurse asked kindly.

"No," Katie whispered. The nurse didn't ask how she was certain, instead moving back to her left side and helping Chief slide back so he could check the needle in her arm again. "Thank you for not sedating me," she added, looking up at the nurse.

The man smiled. "It was a near thing," he admitted. "But I might add a bit of a sedative to your drip later tonight, okay? You need to sleep more now that we've determined that you're all right."

"I'm not sure I'll ever be 'all right' again," she admitted, thinking about Thundercracker's glowing optics in the dark. "But thank you…?"

The nurse's lips twitched. "Ah…" he moved the headset of his stethoscope out of the way to reveal the embroidered patch with his name. A _Hello! My name is:_ nametag covered whatever was beneath the hospital logo. WANKER was written in sharpie.

Katie struggled not to laugh. "Is that _really_ your name?"

"It gets worse," he admitted, reaching into the pockets of his pants and pulling out his hospital ID card which he handed to Katie. Beneath his picture was his name: Richard Wanker, Registered Nurse.

* * *

Later that night after Chief took Erin's service dog home, Katie turned her head toward Erin. "You know something," she accused.

Though she didn't need to, her cousin tilted her head toward Katie. "I know a lot of things," she said vaguely. "What in particular do you have in mind?"

"While I was...gone," Katie said slowly. "I kept having hallucination. Auditory hallucinations." Erin blinked slowly at her. "You were talking to me."

"Could be," Erin replied. "I was thinking about you _very hard_. Mostly because I couldn't see or read all of your missing person's reports."

Katie glared at her though the girl couldn't see it; she was sure that the teenage could feel the heat because the blind girl gave her general direction a toothy smirk. "What happened to your arm?" she asked instead, not caring that she was rude or that her voice was crackling.

"Nicole beats me," her cousin said. "She pushed me down the stairs and I finally reported her for abuse."

"Who is Nicole?" Katie asked.

"That's right," Erin said dryly. "You haven't met her." Katie could tell that there were multiple meanings to that but she wasn't sure what her cousin was trying to say. "Mom remarried - she's my step-sister. We were both at Mission City. Supposed to be visiting family, actually - just like this time."

They both took a moment to reflect on that. For the first time in five years, Erin and Lyra had gone to see their family in California and had brought along Lyra's new husband and Erin's new step-sister. Then Mission City had happened and they had been caught on the outskirts of the incident but Erin had been blinded and chemical burns, road rash, and shrapnel marked a significant part of her skin.

Erin and Nicole had stayed with Chief for a while to recover before returning home. That was why they were so close and Katie knew that their grandfather had helped Erin get her service dog, Byzantine.

The next time Erin and Nicole had come to visit family, this time without Lyra and her new husband (Tyrone? Tyler? Something like that), Katie had gone missing.

Their thoughts were interrupted as Nurse Dick (who had given Erin permission to call him that) returned to sedate Katie. To her surprise, the nurse checked Erin's IV as well and added a sedative. Bidding them goodnight, Nurse Dick left with a cheerful wave.

"Wait," Katie said, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth. "Why do _you_ have a sedative?"

The last thing she heard was Erin's drugged chuckle.

* * *

Katie was terrified when she woke up again to find herself deaf. Looking to the side, hoping for help, she found that she was the only one in the room; there was no second bed. Hands pressed something into her left hand and curled her fingers around something plasticky.

Turning her head so fast she felt something pull in her neck, she found herself staring into Jazz's smiling grey eyes. When she didn't move, he gently took the things he had pressed into her hands - her cochlear implants - and leaned over to clip them to her head. He left her to turn on the implants; she wrapped her right arm around his neck and hugged him as he tried to return to his seat.

Neither of them said anything about the tears streaming down her face as they clung tightly to each other. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again," Jazz whispered into her dirty, unkept hair. He pulled away insistently from her and catching her eyes, signed his promise, knowing that she hadn't turned on her ears yet.

There wasn't an IV in her left arm anymore and she pulled Jazz into bed with her. He followed willingly, letting her curl over and around him so that she was lying as much on him as she was on the bed.

She had so many questions for him but they could wait for later. Right now, she just wanted to hold and be held by him. Quite against her will, she fell asleep cradled in his strong arms.

* * *

When she opened her eyes, it was to an alien landscape. Everything from buildings to roads shone with the lustre of metal of hundreds of different hues. There were buildings of polished silver, then one next to it in a matte violet that was unlike anything of Earth...not naturally anyway. To her right was a building consisting of asymmetrical plates of metal in hundreds of colors she had names for and many that she didn't.

"That's it," she said as she looked around. "I'm dead. I'm _definitely_ dead." The buildings rose high into the sky, far taller than skyscrapers and shone with a polished brilliance that had everything around her shimmering like a giant metallic jewel. _Bismuto_, Angelo, her little scientist, would have called it.

"No," another voice said and she turned instinctively toward her second son before she realized what she saw and heard. He offered an approximation of a human smile, the expression ruined by his segmented lips. "Just stuck in a coma."

They were the same height. _It wasn't right_ and she backed up into the silver building.

"I'm sorry," Folgore said and his shape changed until he resembled his form from her most recent hunt. "I just thought…"

"Why are we the same height?" Armonie asked. "Where am I?"

"Coma dream," Hot Rod replied. "I...I volunteered to keep you company." He tapped the side of his skull where her port would be on his helm.

Armonie frowned at him. "If I'm not _here_, then where is..._this_?" her spread arms took in the metallic world around her.

With a boyish grin that reminded of her dead children, Hot Rod leaned over and grabbed her wrist. "Come on,_ mammina_," he said and tugged her forward. It wasn't forceful, just insistent, which she told herself was why she followed her hallucination. "Let me show you _my_ world."

Hot Rod took her around, the pair running like children down the street to play. He showed her towers that rose so high that she was sure that they would knock the moon from the sky and great crevasses that went all the way down to the core of the strange metallic planet and back.

"Why am I asleep?" Armonie asked her son as they climbed a towering peak. What had she to fear when she had already watched her family die? A lifetime ago she had been afraid of heights. Now she knew true fear; heights were nothing to her now.

Her son looked back at her from where he was and offered a six-fingered hand to help her up to his level. "You were injured," he told her solemnly, the boyish glee fading fast from his alien face. "You nearly died."

"But I didn't…?"

"You didn't," Hot Rod confirmed. He looked up toward the peak of the tower they climbed. "I...squashed them. Like bugs." For an instant she could see through his eyes. Her eyes closing, her head falling back as if ready to accept her death.

She could feel his rage.

Gutshot #1 and Gutshot #2 - Ravage and Soundwave's Frenzy - hadn't survived. She watched their deaths even as she remembered lying there, wallowing in her own pain and choking on her own blood. Hot Rod remembered - _with relish_ \- murdering them. Making them suffer.

She was glad that they were the same height in her coma-dream; she hugged him, pressing the sharp planes of his armor into her soft human flesh. "Thank you," she said. _For being ready to avenge my death_ she didn't say; she didn't have to.

"Race you to the top," she whispered in his audials and with a whoop, lunged toward the next level. With a wild cry, Hot Rod followed.

* * *

Jordan watched Hot Rod and Armonie. She knew that the former-Autobot was furiously jealous that she had been relatively uninjured while his human had nearly died. Still, she had her own aches and pains that were startlingly mild compared to what it _should _have been.

As a police officer, she knew pain and she knew the limits of her body. Though she had spent a lot of their biggest fight on the ground trying not to foul up Armonie's legs, it had still taken a toll on her body. She had _felt_ the sharp _snap_ of her ribs cracking, the fibrous surrender of the muscles in her neck when she had accidentally tripped her comrade.

That mistake had nearly killed them both.

But Saetta (and Prowl) had told her that she was _fine_ aside from a few bruises and scrapes. All minor injuries. She didn't tell her companion - Prowl, _God_, she's never so blatantly lied to him before - that she was fine. They said that she had none of the injuries she _knew_ she had to have.

"You should eat," Prowl told her reproachfully, appearing in the seat next to her. His holoform's ass phased through the small pile of books and clothes she had stored next to her.

"How can you reach this far up?" Jordan asked in lieu of answering.

Her companion gave a bastard mix of a Cybertronian and human chuckle. It sounded like _kurn-kurn-kurn_; if she hadn't been used to his...alien nature, she would have been disturbed by the sound. "We're only on the second floor. At least until she comes out of her coma; then we will move you both somewhere safer."

"Safer?" Jordan asked. "Safe like my house?" What felt like a lifetime ago, Prowl had told her that her house was as protected _as he could make it_. It was a petty question but Prowl had never taken offense to anything she said, even if it was outrageously offensive to him.

Prowl reached over and touched her with his fingertips, gently as if he was afraid that would reject him; perhaps it was a valid fear if he was anyone else but her companion. "I apologize for your...decrease in social status." Prowl told her. "I apologize that your loss was partially due to my presence in your life. I cannot apologize enough to you."

"You make me feel like a kicked dog," Jordan informed her partner, placing her hand on his. He threaded their fingers together.

"I'm sorry," Prowl replied. He sounded very human, very broken; he looked on the verge of tears.

She knew how deliberate it was, that she required thought to make "unintentional" expressions, the kind that would give true emotion away as if he were human. That he _chose_ to show this much emotion was telling; she leaned over and rested her head against his shoulder.

* * *

Jordan watched Armonie learn how to walk and move again. Saetta had repaired her shattered metal arm and had fixed the twisted joint in her cybernetic knee. As ever, Hot Rod was at her side as the dead-eyed teenager when she needed physical support and as the curly-haired hound when she had remastered walking.

"What will you do?" the ex-officer found herself asking as she watched her fellow hunter pace delicately across the balance beam. "Balance beam", however, was a very generous term; the beam that Armonie delicately danced across was less than two inches wide. Saetta had insisted that it helped her balance; Jordan thought it was just another kung-fu cliche but she didn't dare say anything against the engineer's word. "Now that we're done hunting?"

Armonie shrugged and caught herself as he began to tip off-balance; Hot Rod immediately appeared on the side she began leaning toward with his hands held to catch or brace her. "I don't know," she said needlessly. "Maybe return to Italy; maybe travel. We haven't decided."

"Live with me," Jordan found herself blurting. "I have the extra rooms."

Two pairs of hard eyes flicked to her; Hot Rod shifted uneasily from human to curly-haired hound to sleep sighthound and back. He became a teenager again and shifted between what seemed like a hundred iterations of human appearance before returning to his "normal" form.

Armonie watched Hot Rod from her lofty place on the balance beam, turning her legs out as she crouched. Reaching out, she touched the holoform's hair as it blitzed from curly blonde to straight brown. "We're not sure who we are anymore," Armonie admitted and Jordan realized that Hot Rod's form shifting was deliberate - it showed how unsure they were. _Who are we now?_

Cautiously, Jordan held out a hand to Armonie; she took it with the hand that wasn't delicately touching Hot Rod. Pale and tan fingers threaded together. "Take your time," Jordan said. "Take all the time you need...it's an open offer."

It felt like Jordan had never seen Armonie smile before. The brilliant grin seemed to strip away the years that grief had added to her face. Most times and especially when she was focusing during their hunt, it was hard to remember that Armonie was only a handful of years older than her.

"I suppose I can be a housewife again," Armonie said with a teasing grin. "Will I be expected to warm your bed?" she added with an exaggeratedly lewd wink.

Jordan pretended to think as Prowl walked into the weightroom. She jerked her thumb at the holoform. "That's what I have _him_ for."

Even Hot Rod smiled, settling from his dizzying shuffle of faces and skin tones into his curly-haired hound. Prowl did not look amused.

* * *

"What did you _do_?" Nicole whispered, helping Erin get dressed. The blind girl could do so on her own but with her injured shoulder it was much more difficult. Seeing her sister's bare flesh, she couldn't help but feel terrified to see the ghastly colors marking the girl's skin. "You did something, didn't you?"

Erin twisted and flinched as one of her bruises twinged. It hurt something in Nicole to see the girl try so hard to face her even if she couldn't see. "I do a lot of things," Erin replied, voice a little tense. She relaxed, bringing up her free hand to rub her injured shoulder. "You need to be more specific."

Gently, Nicole reached out to touch Erin's side and the girl flinched away before her fingers could touch. "Sorry," Nicole said, eyes roving all of Erin's bare torso. She wore a loose sports bra though by the livid bruises that marked her ribs and back made it look impossible to have accomplished without great pain. Reaching for Erin's button-down shirt, she tapped her sister's uninjured wrist; the teenager lifted the requested limb and held it out so Nicole could slide her shirt on. "What did you do to yourself?"

Erin flinched. "I didn't do it _to_ myself," she mumbled. Nicole found more bruising on her back and her other side was swollen and discolored. The girl flinched again as Nicole touched her side.

"Will you ever tell me?" Nicole asked softly, helping to tuck her injured arm into the shirt.

"Maybe one day," Erin said, sounding tired. Sweat beaded along her hairline. "Can you find my aspirin?"

Nodding, Nicole reached for her pill case and shook out two tablets of percocet into Erin's hand. It tended to make the girl nauseous, but Nicole supposed that nausea was better than pain that made her sweat and shake. Erin's left hand shook as she raised the pills to her lips so Nicole held onto the glass and angled the straw toward Erin's lips. Like watercolors, contusions began spreading under her skin, dripping like aniline purple across her collarbones and down her belly. "Will you be okay?"

Erin flinched again as if someone hit her and the colors on her torso swirled, fading from bright purple to dark violet, to sickly green and yellow. Her skin swelled as if in fast forward, expanding outward as if her skin had its own breath. When she smiled at Nicole, the crinkles around her eyes were bright and happy even though she gritted her teeth against the pain. She swallowed hard and tried a more natural smile. "Yeah," she said, a little breathless in her agony. Nicole finished buttoning her shirt and settled the collar around her neck, fixing her sister's sling so it sat properly over her shoulders.

Finding a piece of unmarked skin was far more difficult than it should have been. Nicole placed her hand on Erin's cheek and the girl smiled, leaning into the soft touch. Her chemical and shrapnel scars rubbed against Nicole's hand. "I love you, you know?"

Erin's smile widened though the laugh lines around her eyes faded. She looked sadder. "I love you, too." She reached up with her good arm and pressed it against the back of Nicole's hand. "All of who you are."

She couldn't help it; Nicole shivered.

* * *

It was remarkably hard to distinguish between Prowl's voice and the whispers of her vice. He sat across from her like a great sphynx, his hands steepled in front of him, his head bowed over a beaten book.

Sometimes she hated how unaffected he was and a part of her wanted to hate _him_ because he never seemed to notice how she suffered at night, dreaming of those invisible contrails forming in the night sky, the paralyzing fear that she and her companion would be struck down and there was nothing they could do about it. He didn't need to sleep but occasionally "rested" in one of her spare rooms as if he did; she _needed_ sleep but it eluded her to the point where she returned to her vice with a vengeance.

Prowl turned a page in his book and paused, turning to look toward the side door. A moment later it opened and Armonie stood, backlit by the rising sun as Hot Rod shoved past her in his curly-haired hound form. Seeing Jordan's condition and Prowl's nonchalance, his lips twisted into a disgusted snarl.

"Shame on you," Armonie told Prowl who raised light-colored brows. She waved him off. "You go help Mutt, there, with our gear. _I'll_ take care of Jordan."

Jordan's lips twisted until she was giving the Italian a monstrous grin. "Mmm fine, _really_."

"You're as fine as Mutt is mentally stable," Armonie informed her. Hot Rod's canine form cocked his head at her as if to say _who, me?_ "You heard what I said, Prowl; get moving. You can show Mutt where our rooms will be while you're at it." She gently pried the bottle from Jordan's fingers and with a conspiratory wink, took a quick sip; Armonie capped the bottle and pushed it to the side, clearing the space in front of Jordan deftly before sinking into the chair beside her.

Prowl gave a heavy put-upon sigh and stood to obey.

Turning her head limply on her neck, Jordan glanced at Armonie who, to her surprise, looked more thoughtful than disgusted. During their hunt, Armonie hadn't once mentioned her alcoholism though Jordan was aware that she had to have known about it.

As if she could sense her thoughts, Armonie gave her a reassuring smile. "That's not what I'm thinking," Armonie told her as if she had spoken out loud. "Come on, let's get you to bed; it's late."

It wasn't, but Jordan rose shakily with her and allowed the Italian to support her stumbling and drunk form. "'Mm no' baby," Jordan mumbled.

"Didn't say you were," Armonie replied cheerfully, tugging the ex-officer toward the stairs. She had a feeling by the blankets and throw pillows on the couch that whenever...this...happened, Jordan didn't bother with the stairs and stayed downstairs. It irked Armonie that Prowl hadn't ever seemed to help her but she supposed that Prowl was a consequences sort of creature; he would let her deal with her own consequences and drown in her pride. "What brought _this_ on?"

Jordan didn't say anything, woodenly lifting her legs up each stair. It made their progress slow but Armonie wasn't bothered, knowing that rushing Jordan would result in her falling. There was no sign that the ex-officer was going to answer if the sound of her stomping, growing louder after the question, was any indication.

"You don't have to answer," Armonie assured her, letting the hand that was wrapped around Jordan's waist shift up her spine to gently stroke the back of her neck. Jordan hummed then gave a full-body flinch that nearly unbalanced them when Armonie's thumb brushed the very edge of one of the scars that decorated the base of her skull. "Sorry," Armonie told her when she got them balanced again. "Come on, let's go. Almost there."

The ex-officer didn't say anything, allowing her slumping body to be led to her room. As gentle as she would have for any of her children (Agostino didn't drink), Armonie laid Jordan down on her bed in parts as she pushed and pulled at the blankets: head and shoulders, torso and hips, legs and feet.

Tugging off Jordan's heavy belt, Armonie noted the worn imprints of clips and holsters. The holes in the belt spoke of long use, the double tongues lolling against the back of her hand as she looked down at it. _It was her work belt,_ Armonie realized. _Maybe an older one_, she amended in her own mind when she found other signs of wear. It wouldn't hold up the full gear of _polizei_, but it was fine for holding up mere _pants_.

Her heavy boots were the same: worn black steel-toes whose treads had worn down on the sides around the toe, the black leather scuffed and dim with age. As she undid the laces, Armonie had a guess what brought this all on. Looking up at the ex-officer, she found Jordan splayed out on the bed like Jesus on the cross, staring blankly at the ceiling as her arms were spread to either side of her body.

Armonie got her a glass of water and left pain pills for her on the nightstand. Through it all, Jordan dozed, oblivious. Shaking her head fondly, Armonie slung one of her arms over her shoulder and lifted her slightly so she could pile pillows behind Jordan so she remained propped up. It wouldn't do for her to survive battle with the Decepticons only to be felled by something so mundane as choking on her own vomit.

Hearing the click of canine paws, Armonie reached out to stroke Mutt's curly head. Ever since Jordan had invited them to live with her, he hadn't changed his holoform very much. Not that Armonie minded - if this is who..._what_ Hot Rod wanted to be, then that was fine with her - but she almost missed the form of the dead-eyed teenager.

As if sensing her thoughts (he probably did by now), Mutt looked up at her with his odd eyes and nudged her hip with his nose. "_Let's let her sleep, Mutt_," Armonie murmured to him in Italian. "_Did you find our room?_"

With a quick glance at the dresser, Armonie noticed that the pictures and awards of Jordan's accolades were broken. The pictures that had been in the frames were torn, a few burned, and lay like half-finished puzzles on the flat top.

"_Maybe that's what set her off,_" Mutt said, unusually gentle as he rose on his hind legs to look at the pictures. If he had been a real dog, Armonie would have been concerned that his breath would disturb the pictures. A roll of Scotch tape lay next to the pictures, an uncut strip hanging from the plastic cutter like a mocking tongue. "_Why would she rip them and then try to fix it again?_"

Mutt returned to her side. "_Maybe it wasn't her that ripped them,_" Armonie suggested kindly to him as they left.

She glanced back halfway down the stairs and found that Mutt had stopped at the top, looking back over his shoulder at Jordan's closed door. When he looked back at her, his eyes were full of uncharacteristic pity which he disguised with a canine grin.

It didn't fool any of them but Armonie let them pretend it did. She clucked her tongue at him and continued down the stairs, the muffled click of Mutt's paws following her like a shadow.

* * *

Hot Rod - _Mutt_, he wanted to be called Mutt - still hadn't warmed to her, but that was all right; she didn't expect his trust _or_ obedience and he minded her well enough when she made it clear that anything but his obedience was unacceptable.

But despite his strange demeanor, it was _nice_ living with Armonie and Mutt. Only Prowl seemed bothered by it, spending most of the first three days after they moved in out sulking. He didn't tell Jordan where he went and was unusually short with her when he returned. That night Mutt hadn't moved from the front of her liquor cabinet, fixing her with his odd-eyed stare.

Armonie didn't comment on it but Jordan caught her signaling for him to stay where he was when Mutt seemed to move to return to her side. A small part of her hated that they ganged up on her like that but another part felt happy that someone at least was doing something about her addiction.

It was the wrong person - that person should be _her_ of course, but someone finally paying attention to it brought a surprisingly warm feeling into her chest.

Nearly a full week after Armonie and Mutt moved in, Jordan was chopping vegetables as the Italian cooked breakfast when Mutt's ears lifted. He was sitting with his nose just touching Armonie's socked foot, staring up at the Italian as she used her prosthetic arm to flip bacon in the pan. Armonie pretended to throw him a piece of bacon; he likewise pretended to be like any normal dog and scrambled after the imagined treat.

Their antics made Jordan smile until Mutt had frozen stiff, his ears pricking up. He said something to Armonie in Italian. "He says someone's coming," Armonie said, putting the pan down and wiping her greasy fingers on the dish towel hooked over her shoulder.

"Who?" Jordan asked, putting down her knife and flicking her wrist to bring her subspace bracelet around.

Mutt snorted and shook himself out. "Jazz. A few humans. Ratchet. Ironhide. Optimus Prime."

Seeing that Armonie was making a face, Jordan raised a brow. "We didn't get along well when I saw them last," the Italian explained and began digging around for another of Jordan's pans. Mutt opened the refrigerator with his mouth and pulled out another slab of bacon. He shifted into a human form to collect more vegetables as well, which he dumped on Jordan's work station before moving to Armonie to deliver the bacon. "May as well make some food for them, too," Armonie said, brows raising as if to dare her to refuse.

Jordan was smarter than that and returned to chopping vegetables for Armonie's hash. She looked up when Hot Rod hovered uncertainly over her. He held out his hand wordlessly for the knife and she passed it over, letting him take her spot.

Watching Hot Rod cut made her dizzy. "I'll warn Jack," she mumbled to no one in particular and walked out the back door toward the shed. The inventor lived with them, claiming space in an unused shed in the back as his new living quarters and workshop. Prowl was there as well, helping Jack with something that they both hid quickly when she poked her head into the shed. "We got company," she told them. "Autobots, Mutt says. Some humans too."

"Be there in a minute," Jack assured her, fussing over the cloth they had hastily used to cover their work station.

Rolling her eyes, Jordan made her way back to the house. Mutt met her at the door, back in his canine form, something small held in his mouth. Taking it gently from him, Jordan saw that it was the earpiece of her mic; she put it on.

"_Jazz is here; he brought Katie with him._" Mutt informed her when it was settled. "_Ratchet, the Autobot medic, is here as well; he did not bring a human partner. Major William 'Wild Bill' Lennox, field commander of NEST and current commander of the base is here, along with the Autobot Ironhide, Weapons Specialist. Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots._"

Jordan nodded once to show she understood. _Anything else?_ She signaled.

"_That is all,_" Mutt replied. "_Armonie thought I should warn you._"

_Thank you,_ she signalled back and removed the earpiece. Mutt shrugged as if to say, _I did it because Armonie asked me to; not for your benefit._ He flinched when she patted his head but didn't pull away, sulkily walking beside her as they moved toward Jordan's dining room where she heard voices.

The holoform of Optimus Prime was surprisingly...normal. Jordan had almost expected someone larger than life, eye catching like Jack was sometimes. Instead he looked like an average-built middle-aged man. His short-cropped black hair was graying along his temples but there were laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. He looked remarkably casual in his khaki pants, worn hiking boots, and flannel shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to his elbows.

"Corporal Jordan Evans-" Optimus Prime began.

"Just Jordan Evans," she interrupted sourly. "They stripped me of my rank and position."

There was a pause as Jordan looked over the other guests in her house. The tired-looking girl must be Katie and beside her was Jazz's now-familiar holoform, hovering a hair away from too close. Another human took up the chair on Katie's other side and though out of uniform there was no denying that he was military. The holoform that sat on the chair beside him was the same, a scowl marking his lips as he watched the man eat.

"Why?" another holoform asked from where he leaned casually against the front door.

Armonie, also looking sour, dropped the bowl of hash in the middle of the table. "How do you like your eggs?"

"They'd like them _not_ to be full of sodium the way everything else you've provided is," the leaning holoform said, lips pulling into a frown.

Now Jordan knew why she looked so frustrated. Armonie held her tongue but Mutt growled openly, moving to the kitchen as well. Jordan guessed that they were having a private conversation, most likely talking the other down from murdering someone.

"It's delicious, Army, thank you," the military man said around a mouthful of food.

Optimus Prime coughed politely and tried again. "Ms. Jordan Evans." She let that slide but didn't hide the look of disgust on her face. "I wanted to thank you and Mrs. Scordato for your assistance in rescuing our friends."

Pursing her lips, she shook her head and walked into the kitchen. "I didn't do shit," she said, ignoring Optimus Prime's wince at her vulgarity. Seeing that Armonie and Mutt didn't seem ready to interact with the group, she grabbed the juicer, a pitcher, and the net bag of oranges that Armonie had bought the other day. "I just tagged along."

"You did," Jazz insisted.

"She's probably right," the holoform that looked like a military sort of man said. "I doubt they could do much."

The furious silence from Armonie and Mutt in the kitchen seemed to absorb all sound. It was the military man that answered before anyone could say anything. "You know, you say that, 'Hide," he said with false cheer. "But I do remember Sam killing Megatron. And my squad helped take down Brawl _and_ Scorponok. Yet you don't doubt _my_ strength."

"Of course," the holoform called Hide said. "You were all men."

Katie looked up from her plate, her smudged eyes sharp as she looked from face to face. A strange flesh-colored plastic device lay beside the plate in front of her. Chewing, she turned to look at Jazz; he signed what Jordan assumed was a description of the conversation to her, causing her to scowl. Swallowing her mouthful of food, she scooped what Jordan realized were her implants and hooked them over her ear. "Does gender matter to you?" she asked, voice thick with her "deaf accent".

"Biologically, females are not meant to deal with that sort of fighting," Hide said. "It's not a slight against you or your gender as a whole, just a statement of fact."

Jordan snorted. "So _biologically_ Armonie _couldn't_ have killed those bird things?" When Hide opened his mouth, she lifted the hand holding her knife, a single finger raised. "Not another word from you. Young I may be and with such apparent frailty as a woman, but I will not hear you discredit my work. Either you will be silent or I will ask Armonie to give you an up-close and personal account of how 'weak' she and Mutt can be. I will even arm them."

"No need," Jack said as he walked into the dining room. "I've been working on another rifle for her and some updated armor for the both of you. We could think of this as a field test."

There was silence in the kitchen. The other man, who hadn't introduced himself, continued to eat as if completely unbothered. Jordan nudged his leg with her foot; he didn't quite _startle_, but he did stiffen and look at her with wide eyes. "What's your name?"

He ducked his head and swallowed his bite of food. "S'wwy," he said and took a quick sip of his coffee to clear his mouth. "Lennox. Will Lennox."

The name struck a chord in her memory but she didn't dwell on it; she shook his hand, looking straight into his calm grey eyes. She nods once and returns to cutting and squeezing oranges.

Optimus Prime coughed again. "This wasn't how this talk was supposed to go."

"The more people that are involved, the further off-target a conversation can go," Jordan told him brusquely. "Your men are opinionated and their respect for you will not stop that."

Hide and the leaning holoform protested that, reluctantly falling silent when Optimus gestured to them. Whatever they saw in his eyes or whatever they heard over the private comms made them sit still and silent; the leaning holoform's jaw muscles bunched as he clenched his teeth but they remained silent.

"You were the one that saved me - saved _us_," Katie said, sounding as if her tongue was numb. Surprised, Jordan looked up at her. "I remember you...I saw your face first."

Jordan clenched her jaw. She remembered the darkness, the brilliant blossoms of light that light up the dark cave where the prisoners had been held. At night she dreamt of the livid bruises on their faces, wrists, the grime on their skin that made their thin faces seem skeletal. She had taken off her helmet and snapped a few glow-sticks so they could see that she was _human_. Like feral creatures they had shrunk away from her before approaching, realizing that she was there to help.

"I and others," Jordan said, pressing down the orange with more force than was necessary. She felt the dull point of the juicer press up into her palm, having pressed hard enough for it to break through the skin of the fruit. "It wasn't just me. A spy called Raoul was there as well."

"Raoul?" Optimus Prime asked with interest. "Jazz will not give us a full count on who was there," he explained when Jordan glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. The leader of the Autobots drew a chair, turning it so he could straddle it and rest his crossed arms over the back. "No one I've spoken to will give me a full account."

Jordan paused, her knife poised above an orange. "Then it is not for me to tell," she said at last, letting the knife fall. The orange split smoothly in two; after a week of Armonie in the kitchen, each utensil was cleaned and sharpened to near-professional quality.

"I _told_ you this was a waste of time," the leaning holoform said. "Like talking to brick walls."

The floor creaked, Prowl announcing his presence as he stalked from the living room. "First they are weak for being female, now they are brick walls unwilling to give up their secrets."

"Prowl," Optimus said, sounding surprised. "Who _else_ is here?"

Jack shifted. Jordan squeezed another orange and poured the collected juice through a strainer and into the pitcher; William Lennox continued to work through his plate and Armonie and Mutt were silent in the kitchen, silent rage still rolling off of them in waves. "Does it matter?" Prowl wanted to know. "We all chose to be here and Jordan is kind enough to let us share her space."

"It's safer at the base," Hide said, his voice a low rumble. "With others of our kind."

"Staying with others of our kind would have gotten us killed," Prowl replied calmly as Jordan sliced into another orange. "I can't speak for anyone else, but I am happy where I am."

The leaning holoform pushed off the wall. "With an _alcoholic?_"

Jordan's knife slipped and sliced a chunk of skin off her thumb. In an instant, Prowl was at her side, gripping her wounded hand and pressing a wad of napkins to the slice. "I would rather live and die with her," Prowl said his voice a deep rumble that spoke of his anger. "Alcoholic, woman, it doesn't matter to me. I could see the strength in her when you only look over her."

There was silence. Though his holoform didn't move, Jordan could feel the disapproval radiating off Optimus Prime but she was surprised to note that it didn't seem to be directed toward her or Prowl. Hide and the leaning holoform winked out as if they hadn't been there. "We wanted to get a report from you," he said at last, his voice carrying a bit of a metallic edge. "To see if you could give us more information on who is on Earth, Autobot or Decepticon. It was not meant to infuriate you."

"Meant to or not, it happened," Lennox said, glancing at them. Katie watched with eyes still showing her pain. Briskly, Lennox wiped his mouth with a napkin. "Thank you very much for breakfast. It wasn't expected but much appreciated."

Cooking was a soft spot for Armonie; she inched out of the kitchen, Mutt following like a hellhound. He wasn't in his usual form of a cream-and-tan curly-haired hound but rather in a much larger form with long legs and fur the color of iron wire; he came up to Armonie's chest at his great shoulders with Autobot-blue eyes shining through the bristles of his brow.

"I also wanted to offer you a place at the base," Optimus Prime said with a cordial nod toward Armonie and Mutt. They didn't return it. "You don't need to accept, but it's an open offer."

Armonie let her hand drift down to Mutt's where it was lowered aggressively. "Thank you for your offer," she said stiffly.

"_I_ came here because I wanted to thank you," Katie said suddenly. "Jazz told me...what you all did. I wanted to thank you for trying to save a stranger."

"We didn't try," Jordan told her, allowing Prowl to take over squeezing orange juice. "We did."

Armonie looked hesitant, her fingers still tangled in Mutt's iron-wire fur. "My family was killed by Decepticons," she said, slowing down at Jazz's discreet gesture. He translated in sign language when Katie turned to him and continued to as Armonie continued. "I can't do anything to prevent it - it already happened. Your attack...I had the chance to do something about."

Katie smiled shyly, lips shaking. "I appreciate it - Maggie and...Mr. Keller do too." She swallowed hard. "I also wanted...to apologize. For my father."

To everyone's obvious surprise, it was Mutt that answered. "Sons - or daughters - do not bear the sins of the father," he said, voice rough but kind. "Our actions are our own and our sins are our own to bear. Do not blame yourself for the misguided actions of a man whose largest sins were committed because he loved you."

The woman swallowed hard. "I want to hate him...is that bad?"

"Does it matter?" Jordan asked, making Optimus Prime flinch. "Thinking about whether it's right or wrong to hate can only make you more anxious. If you hate him, you hate him and that is entirely your choice."

Armonie smiled and held out a hand. "I spoke with him...before we went into the cave."

"He was _there_?" Katie whispered. She turned to Jazz who wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Can we have a human moment?" Armonie asked, looking at Optimus Prime. "Please?"

Despite the wording, it wasn't a request. Prowl patted Jordan's shoulder and vanished, followed soon after by Jack; Mutt nudged Armonie's ribs with his great shaggy head and winked out like a switch had been flipped. Jazz hesitated for a moment before squeezing Katie's shoulder and walking out the door.

"Will you be okay?" Optimus Prime asked hesitantly, the last non-human in the room.

Katie looked ready to break. "We all deal with grief differently," Armonie told him gently. "And right now I am about to tell her difficult news and truths that have been kept from her." She stared at him challengingly.

"It's never one person's fault, and the sins of the few do not rest on the shoulders of the group," Jordan added gruffly. "But a human's grief is different than yours and each of us have a different relationship with our ancestors. Would you understand the love a child has for her father?"

Optimus Prime considered them carefully. "Not in the biological sense," he admitted. "I care deeply for my men and for the mate I left behind, but I suppose that our sense of _love_ is different than yours."

"Not different," Armonie corrected. "We just don't react the same way. What I have to say to Katie is what you already know but also what you do not _feel_."

The leader of the Autobots nodded wearily. "_That_ news, then?"

Katie's eyes narrowed. "_What_ news?"

"_That_ news," Armonie agreed, voice hard.

The Autobot leader nodded slowly, stood, and left. "I'll go outside as well," Lennox said as he stood. "And take Ironhide and Ratchet with me. Thank you for the meal." With a nod, he left and a moment later the women could hear the roar of two large engines and the sound of tires on gravel.

"I have been patient," Katie said, her slight tremor hidden by her heavy speech. "What news?"

Jordan watched as Armonie pulled something out of her subspace bracelet and offered it to Armonie. When she saw the embossed plates, she looked away; Katie sobbed.

"I was there," Armonie told her kindly. "I held his hand but all he could think about was _you_ and how much he loved you."

They watched, neither of them entirely sure what to do as Katie cried. Eventually they moved their chairs so that they bookended her and wrapped their arms, one flesh-and-blood, one prosthetic. After a moment's pause and a full-body flinch that spoke of abuse, neglect, and fear, Katie leaned into their embrace and allowed Armonie to pass the thin strips of metal into her hands. Curling around her father's dog tags, Katie wept.

* * *

Jazz and Prowl together stood guard over Katie's sleeping form. No one had the heart to move her further than the couch and so Optimus Prime had left, leaving Jazz and Katie to rest at Jordan's lonely house.

"I'm starting to feel like I own a hotel," Jordan admitted to Armonie as they crossed the yard to Jack's shack. Mutt appeared beside them as they approached, still in the form of the hound with iron-wire hair. "I can't bring myself to care."

To her surprise, Mutt nudged her with his nose before winding around Armonie like a large cat. "You have a good heart," he said gruffly.

Behind them, the sliding glass door to the backyard opened and closed; Jazz's holoform walked along the drying grass toward them. Jordan nodded at him and turned to Mutt and Armonie. "I'm a disgraced ex-cop," she told them. "In light of...whatever this was, whatever happened. The force won't take me back, not with whatever charges they threw at me." She sighed and tugged the end of her braid where it hung over her shoulder. "I'm not sure by what means I will support myself - support _us_ if we continue to live here. Our financial stability is not why I brought you out here."

"I hope not," Armonie said dryly, a hint of a smile on her lips. "It makes for a boring conversation."

Mutt nudged first Armonie then Jordan. "We will follow you so long as you allow us to," he said, the most he had spoken to her since they had moved in; he didn't even sound grumpy, much less aggressive as he normally was.

"We saw how easy it was for the Decepticons to attack," Jordan continued with a shaky smile at Mutt. "We saw how easy it was for humans to be deceived. A residential neighborhood is no place for us."

"What about wine country?" Jazz asked as he approached. "We'd need to do some work...but I'm sure Katie would like the company...and the help." Jazz paused. "That was the other reason why we had come. Katie and I wanted to invite you to live with us."

The humans were quiet for a moment, looking at the holoform. "Katie's house was burned down," Armonie said slowly. "It would take a lot of work to build it back up."

"Work and money," Jordan added thoughtfully. "How are we to pay for that kind of work?"

"I have a restaurant," Jazz replied. "Katie rented it for me."

Armonie's eyes lit up. "You mean to use the money from that to pay for the repairs."

"Katie and I had talked about it," Jazz said with a nod. "We haven't found anyone to work the restaurant yet; I had...other things distracting me." He bit his lip in a very human gesture. "We'd really like it if you joined us." He added.

Jordan and Armonie glanced at each other. Though they had known each other for barely a week, they felt as if it had been years and they communicated silently through subtle gestures. Mutt nudged Armonie's hip, offering his own silent input. "I suppose we all have to stick together now."

"We'll never be quite trusted among humans," Mutt added, tucking his hind legs beneath him; it raised his big head up to Armonie's shoulder and she casually slung her prosthetic arm around his neck. "I like this idea."

The ex-cop chuckled. "A few near-death experiences and a fight with evil mechanical chickens and all of a sudden we're best friends. This is something straight out of some stupid TV drama."

"What do _you_ think, Jack?" Armonie asked the closed door of the shed.

"I _think_," came the engineer's muffled voice. "That I shouldn't be playing with phosphorus."

Jordan rolled her eyes. "I will _murder_ you if you get the police called on me." she informed the shed.

"What do you say?" Jazz asked.

Mutt shrugged for Armonie who raised a brow at Jordan. "It's a little early to be planning out the rest of our lives," the ex-cop said. "It's not even noon yet. Can we settle for planning on making sure that Jack doesn't burn down the shed?"

A brilliant white and yellow light seeped from beneath the shed door as Jack appeared beside them. He was back in the form that Jordan had first seen him in, a man with rainbow-dyed hair and a matching beard. The bastard looked entirely unrepentant as white smoke began rolling out from beneath the closed shed door.

"White phosphorus reacts violently with oxygen, did you know that?"

* * *

**Macrame****: a form of textile-making using knotting rather than knitting or weaving. It's a joke among my friends that I shouldn't be allowed embroidery, sewing, or knitting needles and the idea of Erin, who is blind, attempting macrame (without assistance, as I believe that if she had someone help her keep track of her string numbers she would be just fine) is just hilarious.**

**Headset (stethoscope)****: the major parts of a stethoscope are the **_**headset**_**, which includes the eartips, the biaural or "eartubes", and the biaural spring; the chestpiece; the tubing; and the bell or diaphragm, to listen for high frequency sounds (diaphragm) or low frequency sounds (bell). **

**Turnout****: rotating the leg outward from the hips. **

**Aniline purple (Mauveine, also known as Perkin's mauve)****: the first synthetic organic compound dye and among the first to have been mass-produced. It's a mixture of four related aromatic compounds differing in number of placement and methyl groups.**

* * *

**Thank you to those of you that have read this story. I'm sorry I couldn't make a better ending, but I feel like this is the best place and way to end it.**

**I will write more of their shenanigans later (especially the idea of Armonie and/or Jordan working in Jazz's restaurant) but first I need to prepare for NaNoWriMo. Once that is complete, I will continue to revamp this series. **

**If you have any questions or notice anything wrong with the stories (aside from and my computer eating my formatting), let me know! If you have any questions or comments, hit me up! You can reach me here or if you don't have an account, by email at dracoduceus97 . **

**Until all are one!**

**~DC**


	24. After Ever After

**I know I'm supposed to be preparing for NaNoWriMo, but this idea wouldn't get out of my head and it seemed too "immediate" for the "sequel" I have planned. Title inspired by the YouTube videos **_**After Happily Ever After**_**.**

* * *

Tipping her head into the shower spray, Erin sighed. The water itself was little better than room temperature, designed to wash off the grime of the outside world and her strenuous day before she slipped into the bath.

"Don't drown," Nicole had teased as she closed the door to the master bathroom. "It would be awkward to explain."

Briskly, Erin began cleaning herself from head to toe. She took a moment to miss her favorite shampoo - lavender-scented, banished after she became blind due to the strong smell giving her a headache. Her favorite body wash (also lavender-scented) and shaving gel (strawberry-tangerine) were likewise banned, replaced with the stupid, scentless stuff she was now stuck with. She allowed herself the luxury of scented bubble bath in the bathtub, though, and relished the crisp, clean scent of lavender and chamomile stirring the air as the bathtub faucet roared into the basin.

Maybe Nicole and Lyra were right and she _did_ have a slight obsession with lavender.

Erin felt around for her conditioner, tipping her head into the spray as she relaxed further. The water hit bruises and portions of her body that should have housed broken bones without pain.

Nevertheless despite the temperature being barely warmer than the air, the water felt _wonderful_.

A form appeared in the steam blanketing the bathroom. "That's creepy," Erin murmured, voice low so that no one could hear it over the sound of the shower, as she brushed conditioner through her long hair with her fingers. "Are you going to watch me shower?"

The shifting form makes a face at that but disappears.

Briskly, Erin twisted her hair on her head and held it in place with a set of decorative chopsticks that Nicole had gotten her for Christmas the year she had gone blind. She had three pairs her step-sister had given her: one set was plain and undecorated by dangling charms or beads, which she used to quickly hold her hair up and away from her face. Two other sets were decorative, one set more elaborate than the other so she could wear them out.

She didn't say anything about the tracking chips in the sticks, as not only did she not care but as a human she wasn't supposed to be able to catch that Nicole had included a way for her to monitor the blind girl when she wasn't around. In a detached sort of way, she could sense the minute crumbs of data being sent: air temperature, humidity, body temperature, orientation, altitude, and other little bits that seemed far too esoteric for her to pay much more attention to.

_How is your arm?_ The disembodied voice asked.

Erin snorted and began scrubbing her body. The areas of her skin covered in bruises lit up in her mind's eye as she passed her washcloth over them, turning her world of darkness into something like a starlit night.

Her shoulder glowed blue; the bruises along her ribs red. Some of her joints and her other shoulder were silver.

After rinsing briskly she stepped, still dripping, out of the shower and looked in the direction of the tub. Unlike Katie's hallucination during her captivity, Erin could "see" hers when the hallucination chose to show herself, usually in the form of a woman. Now, in observance of human nudity taboo, she wasn't "visible" but Erin could feel her cool touch and her gentle tugs toward the bathtub.

_Do they hurt?_ She asked, trailing a cool hand over a swollen portion of Erin's arm. With her other hand, she directed the girl to the cool marble tiles of the bathtub. _The bruises?_

Erin shrugged. _You know they don't,_ she replied without speaking, groping the edge of the tub with her fingers before gingerly sitting on the lip. She hissed when the marble, wet with steam but still cool, touched her warm skin._ We still need to keep up pretenses._

She could hear the water ripple as what she had long since given up as a hallucination did something. From the fresh infusion of lavender and chamomile in the air, she guessed that the water had been stirred or more of the milk bath had been added. _It's a little warm,_ she was warned as she slowly moved her legs over to the water.

_Have you decided what to call yourself?_ Erin asked instead, sucking a breath in as she submerged her feet in water just too warm to be comfortable. _I can't keep imagining you as my hallucination; we both know it's not true._

The other hummed thoughtfully. _Maybe,_ she admitted. _It's just so difficult to decide...so many names._

Erin hummed, hissing again as she pushed more of her body into the bath. The water at the edge of the infinity pool-styled tub sloshed over, splashing into the basin that caught it; the drain groaned and slurped up the offering as she sank up to her chest in hot water and bubbles.

_I would help, but I'm not good at naming things,_ Erin said, sighing contentedly as the hot water soothed her tired muscles.

Her hallucination chuckled and the water at the end of the long tub rippled as if someone ran their fingers over the surface. _I'm not a "thing"_, she was told, a hint of a smile in the disembodied voice. _But I'm liking Asherah_. The water rippled and shifted again and Erin could feel the tiny eddies caused by a stronger motion of invisible fingers. Or perhaps Asherah was visible; it wasn't like she could _see_ her anyway. _Maybe Toci - the mother of gods._

_Both sound nice,_ Erin murmured, leaning her head back against the headrest of the tub.

Asherah/Toci chuckled and flicked water at her. _You're no help,_ she teased before falling silent again. The water moved again as she ran her hands through the water.

_What are you doing?_ Erin asked, trying to sound annoyed but it only seemed loose and lazy.

Asherah hummed thoughtfully and the water rippled again. _Just thinking,_ she said. _Why did you do it? I can't understand it._

_I wanted them to have their happily-ever-after_, Erin replied with a shrug that sent the surface of the water heaving. _I wanted them to go on with their lives as soon as they could..._so I took their pain.

Neither of them said anything for a while and Erin relaxed further with a sigh into the backrest of the tub. _And then I healed you. Did you know that I could?_

_I was prepared to suffer,_ Erin replied. _It's not like I do much except study._

Erin could hear the other stand and walk around the bathroom. Her steps were nearly silent, not truly existing in a physical sense, but the shifting of decorative vases and a large bowl of glass marbles gave her away.

Realizing that she was tensing up again, Erin sighed heavily and held out a hand toward Asherah, ignoring that her hand dripped water and suds out of the tub. _Come here,_ she said. _You're making it hard to relax._

Ghostly fingers threaded through hers as Asherah sat at the edge of the tub. _Do you want to see? Their happily-ever-afters?_

Erin smiled. _If you want to show me,_ she said. _You know you're always going on and on about the consequences of our actions. _She hadn't meant it as the consequences of her actions to take the pain of our cousin and her allies, but she clearly felt Asherah's frown and knew that was the way that _she_ took it. _You _know_ what I meant._

When Asherah tried to separate their fingers, there was a moment where skin pulled as if their palms were stuck together. Erin's eyes and the raised scars on her face and shoulders tingled. _It's a little late for that,_ Asherah commented, something like worry in her voice.

_A lot too late,_ Erin agreed, tugging on their joined fingers. _Come back. Show me if you must but at least let me _relax.

Asherah laughed as Erin sighed again, warmth spreading across her body as if she had climbed back into the hot water of her bath. Through Erin's useless eyes, Asherah looked out the window at the scenic view of the nearby lake and mountains. The windows frosted over with Asherah's influence and an image of a kitchen manned by a woman and two ghosts formed.

* * *

Armonie wiped her hands on the apron around her waist, stepping back to let Jazz come around and survey her work. He offered her a brilliant grin and clapped her once on the shoulder, careful of how sensitive the seam between real flesh and prosthetic was.

"I like that," he told her, pointing to her demos for Jordan and Katie, neither of whom were fully awake enough to be let into the kitchen. They were also to test out the "industrial" recipe and to propose her plating ideas to Jazz.

"_Shakshouka_," she said without prompting. "With meat sauce and without. I used a more Italian marinara sauce - homemade, of course - than a spicy one. On the side I have cilantro and some fresh bread with roasted garlic spread so it's sweeter and they don't have to worry _too_ much about garlic breath so early in the morning."

Hot Rod (as Mutt was not allowed in the kitchen) slid another plate down the line. "Latkes with eggs over easy and lamb steak."

Inspecting it critically, Jazz nodded with another brilliant smile. "I like it. So that's the two for breakfast; what about lunch?"

Gesturing to Hot Rod, Armonie said, "Roddy's finishing the marinade for the lamb roast and afterwards he'll starting the spice mix for the Israeli couscous with kale."

"Slave-driver," the holoform muttered though the edge of his mouth hooked upward to bely his grumpy demeanor. He was slowly beginning to show emotion in his holoform, something that made Armonie happy to see. It was a slow process, but they were healing at last.

Armonie motioned to the large stand mixer behind them. "I'm getting ready to prepare the pita - used for sandwiches but also to be baked into chips for the hummus."

She continued to lead Jazz around the kitchen, turned over to her temporarily for their International Week. Though Jordan couldn't cook to save her life, International Week had been her contribution to the restaurant in the first week she had worked there. Jazz had to do some hopping (to use a human phrase) to make it work, but Armonie was a gift from Primus, being able to cook quickly, plate beautifully, and having experience in many different types of cuisines from her travels and heritage. Between the two of them, cooking for International Week turned out to be remarkably easy.

With a flourish, Armonie opened the double doors of one of their industrial refrigerators - separated at her insistence for Israeli Day (and Rosh HaShannah) to keep kosher - and showed him the briskets she had prepared. The night before she and Hot Rod had marinaded half of the impressive stock in a liquid marinade and rubbed the other half in rosemary, garlic, spices, and olive oil. Now she outlined to Jazz how she intended to use the massive industrial ovens and smokers to cook the dish to succulence.

An obscene pile of onions, celery, and carrots waited to be chopped to be added to the stock. Clapping her on the shoulder again, Jazz told her, "I can see I'm leaving the kitchen in capable hands." He scooped up the breakfast plates to deliver to their charges in the other room.

Armonie gave him a brilliant smile and offered an ironic salute. "Let me know how the sauce is!" she yelled through the swinging doors. "And the latkes! The lamb is a lost cause if it's off!" The door swung shut on her next words.

Looking like she had crawled out of her grave, Jordan nodded at him from behind the pastry counter. She loaded steaming pastries onto a plate in her undershirt, her uniform hanging on a rack behind the register. They had been concerned about being accused of cultural appropriation so they had decided against having cultural costumes as a uniform for International Week, but allowed the staff to dress in something that represented their ethnic heritage if they so chose.

According to the ex-officer, Armonie had pestered Jordan first for her ethnic background and then to wear the frilly blouse and long skirt to work. It was such a hit to see a gorgeous _senorita_ at Pineapple Princess that Jazz hadn't felt _too_ bad asking her to wear it more often.

For all she complained, though, having Armonie living with Jordan at least for the time being was good for the both of them. It gave Armonie someone to mother and it gave Jordan someone to interact with other than Prowl who had made himself scarce.

"Will you be ready in time for breakfast?" Jazz wanted to know, pointedly checking the clock above the register. "Billy says it's nearly time to open."

Jordan rolled her eyes. The clock face was burnished copper set in pale wood was Jack's second creation from the scrap in Jordan's storage shed where he had situated himself. Made of repurposed materials, it was both a hipster's and an artist's wet dream and its size was another draw for that sort of crowd to ogle while they waited for their food. Named Billy by the staff, it cradled the little baskets that formed the Lost-and-Found and was jokingly blamed for most of the issues in the restaurant (and sometimes issues at Jordan's house).

Carrying the plate in one hand, Jordan snagged her outfit with the other and brought it to the table. Shoving a pastry in her mouth crudely, Jordan glared at Prowl as she got dressed. Hound, who had chosen to work that shift as well, snorted. He was dressed in the colorful outfit of the Sami people in Scandinavia, adjusting his holoform slightly so that it wouldn't seem too far out of the realm of possibility.

Katie glanced up belatedly, having taken off her cochlears for the time being. Since being rescued, she had a strange love-hate relationship with her implants. Though she hadn't been tortured the way that Maggie had been, there were a lot of things that she needed to recover from.

No one mentioned how none of them came back with any injuries save malnutrition and dehydration. It was an enduring mystery that no one was entirely sure how to bring up.

_What's that?_ Katie signed as Jordan put the steaming plate of pastries down in front of her.

As Jazz put down the plates in his hands, Jordan shoved the rest of her pastry in her mouth and signed, _R-U-G-E-L-I-E_.

_Rugelach_, Jazz corrected, waving to get Katie's attention. He narrated verbally and with his hands the plates that Armonie provided as tests. Making a face, Katie clipped her implants on.

"I hope you actually know what it is," Jazz told Jordan, trying to be stern.

The ex-officer rolled her eyes and produced a handful of 3x5 index cards from her subspace bracelet, fanning them out to reveal notes. "Rugelach: a rolled Jewish pastry of Ashkenazic origin. We have ones wrapped with Nutella, chocolate, chocolate-peanut butter, and chocolate-hazelnut."

"She stayed up late studying them," Katie said, using a chunk of bread to scoop up the sauce in one of the pans. "It was impressive."

Jordan shrugged, reaching for the bread. Katie nudged the plate closer and the ex-officer offered a hooked grin in thanks. She scooped a generous portion of the sauce and a single sunny-side egg on the chunk of bread. Leaning over the plate, she shoved the entire thing in her mouth.

"You eat like you were raised in a barn!" Jazz said as a large drop of red sauce fell on her skirt.

"Mehh-behh aah wasth," Jordan said around her mouthful of food. Katie snorted, biting into a latke.

Grumbling, he poked his head into the kitchen and asked for a wet rag from Armonie. "She spilled on her skirt again, didn't she?" she grumbled as she obeyed. "I _told_ her to eat _first,_ _then_ put it on."

Hot Rod chuckled from where he was mechanically chopping vegetables. "She eats like she was raised in a barn."

"That's what she gets for living alone," Armonie said, though the affection in her tone belied her rough words. She handed the damp cloth to Jazz. "And that's what _you_ get for telling her to dress early. Just be glad it wasn't on one of the white parts!"

Jazz frowned at the woman who smirked and pointed to the jack behind her right ear. He realized that Hound probably told her what happened, having taken a liking to her during their hunt. "You don't respect me," he accused, narrowing his eyes.

The two in the kitchen gave eerily similar laughs and Jazz fled.

Erin took a deep breath and sank further in the bath. From Asherah's influence, she could feel and "see" the piles of frothing bubbles flutter under her breath.

_Nice,_ she said. _I wish we had stayed a bit longer to witness their opening week._

Asherah hummed, lifting Erin's arm to stir the bubbles. _We stayed long enough. And you keep reminding me how much you hate to lie to Lyra._

_I know,_ Erin said with a regretful sigh. _And I _do_ hate the lies._

Raising a hand, Asherah cleared the far window. _I do love this motion. Swish and flick. Humans are so _imaginative.

Erin barked a laugh and sank lower into the suds. Two years ago, Asherah hadn't moved her arms when doing her "cosmic magic", as Erin jokingly called it. After having experienced the world through her (albeit blind) eyes and being exposed to the idea of witches, wizards, and wands, Asherah now indulged in those little movements.

It was strange to think of how much they had both changed in those two years.

Neither of them wanted to think about their future; nothing good can come from it.

They sank back against the rest and sighed. _I hope they can keep that happily-ever-after_, Erin offered.

_That would be nice, for once,_ Asherah agreed. They both fell silent and closed their eyes.

* * *

"She _never_ takes pictures," Lyra muttered.

Without looking up, Nicole turned a page in her book. "She's _blind_, Lyra. It'd be difficult to aim the camera."

"_You know what I mean_," Lyra snapped and Nicole hid a smile. She shook the handful of prints at her adopted daughter. "Not a single picture she was in is useable."

Nicole chuckled, turning the page again. "You can't fix stupid, but you _can_ fix ugly."

She laughed outright when Lyra threw the pictures at her and stomped off. Curious, Nicole put down the book and picked up the scattered pictures.

The first one was a picture of the two of them (three including Izzy) standing together in front of a winery. It was early on in their trip, visiting a close friend of Erin's mother in Sonoma. Izzy was looking off in the distance, pulling against his harness and Erin's eyes glowed blue.

In the next picture, Erin was scowling at the camera with her arms cross. Her cane hung from one hand as the Hollywood sign peeked over her shoulder. In the background, Izzy was crouched crudely and once more, Erin's eyes glowed.

Red-eye _was_ an issue with light-colored eyes, she supposed. Even if her light-colored eyes were a result of the chemicals that had blinded her. As she flipped to the next picture, she realized her mistake.

Shortly before going to visit Katie and Chief, their hosts had taken them to the Museum of Contemporary Art, obviously a mistake considering Erin was blind. Nevertheless she was game, walking placidly beside her step-sister and aide though she had thankfully left Izzy behind.

That creature was as much a menace as a guide dog.

In the picture, Nicole and Erin leaned against each other, the latter folding her hands primly over the handle of her cane. Both of them had their sunglasses pushed back on their head, having been cast into shadow by neighboring buildings. Nicole distinctly remembered that there hadn't been a flash, having been asked by Erin (as a joke) if she was as blind as she was now and if they could be "blind buddies" together.

Erin's eyes still glowed.

Erin's eyes still glowed _and they glowed blue_.

Her mind raced.

_Red-eye effect_: the red-eye effect in photography is the common appearance of red pupils in color photographs of eyes. It occurs when using a photographic flash very close to the camera lens (as with most compact cameras), in ambient low light. In flash photography the light of the flash occurs too flash for the pupil to close, so much of the very bright light from the flash passes into the eye through the pupil, reflects off the fundus at the back of the eyeball, and out through the pupil.

Nicole tapped her chin thoughtfully. Red-eye was typically that - the eyes appearing _red_. Glancing at all of the pictures of Erin, she noticed that they were _blue_, bright blue like a sunny sky. Skimming the article, she noticed a section noting similar effects.

_In many flash photographs, even those without perceptible red-eye effect, many animals' pupils display __eyeshine__. Although eyeshine is an unrelated effect, animals with blue eyes may display the red-eye effect in addition to eyeshine._

She found, when clicking on the link, that eyeshine was caused by an iridescent layer of tissue in the eye of many vertebrates called the _tapetum lucidum_. It lay behind the retina and through reflection, allows more light to reach the photoreceptors. _Most primates, including humans, lack a _tapetum lucidum.

So if it wasn't a red-eye (being that the glare wasn't red) and eyeshine from a _tapetum lucidum_ that humans didn't have...why did Erin's eyes glow like that?

_What's wrong?_ She had asked Erin last month. It felt like months ago.

_I'll tell you when you tell me,_ Erin had replied. _And she had met Nicole's eyes_.

Nicole gently placed the pictures down and sorted through the ones she had downloaded from their trip. In every picture where Erin was looking at the camera, her eyes had a slight blue glow. Glancing back to where Lyra had stalked off, Nicole thought. She was probably trying to find good pictures to put into a photo album or into their Christmas brochure.

Shaking her head, she found a nice picture of her and Erin, one of the nicest they took on their break: it was a candid shot of the two of them trailing the brief vineyard tour they took, Erin's hand tucked into the crook of Nicole's elbow. The blind girl's eyes were hidden by sunglasses and her head was tilted downward toward the ground and Nicole, in her own sunglasses, had her head tilted toward her step-sister's, their lips parted as if in the middle of a conversation. They probably were.

"Lyra?" Nicole called, pulling up the picture on her phone. "How about this one?"

_It would do,_ Lyra decided and Nicole sent the picture over so she could order prints. Upstairs, Nicole could hear the gush of water down the drains as Erin drained the tub from her bath.

Nicole leaned back into the plush cushions of their new couch, closing her eyes._I'll tell you when you tell me,_ Erin had said.

_I'm not ready yet,_ Nicole thought to her. Getting up, she grabbed her helmet and walked toward their garage. Mounting her bike, she paused glancing back at the house. _But soon, I might be_. It was a scary thought.

Nicole started the motorcycle and raced away.

* * *

_**Shakshouka**_**: traditional (or so I've been told) Israeli breakfast with fresh eggs simmered in spicy tomato sauce. **

**Hot Rod vs Mutt****: I will refer to them based on their forms (as that is how he, himself, would refer to himself as). Mutt refers to any canine form he takes; Hot Rod typically implies his "true" body or a humanoid figure. **

**Armonie's two brisket recipes****: This is a little nod to my own experiences with Rosh HaShannah. I'm not Jewish, but my friends are and I love to cook so they roped me into helping them with their Passover seder (and later all of their dinner parties). I ended up cooking the brisket, which apparently everyone loved. When my ex's mother (who is Jewish) found out, she tried to give me **_**her**_** recipe for use next time because hers was **_**much better**_** than mine. For the record, it was, but I felt bad taking her recipe and pretty much never used it much to her annoyance. It's something we often disagree on. **

**Billy the Scapegoat****: Designing this clock was what made me realize that I was in dire need of sleep. I don't know how "Billy" came around (probably from **_**scape**__**goat**_**) but my exhausted thoughts had it that the staff would blame Billy for something happening rather than each other. Too much salt in the entree? Silly Billy! Missing phone? Billy stole it! (He became the Lost-and-Found bin after Jack reinforced his arms and the brackets that fastened him to the wall) Someone tripped and fell? Bad Billy! Don't worry; Billy will make a reappearance in the sequel!**


End file.
